


Beating Like Thunder

by petalpusher



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: AU with a plot, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Julie is a senior, Minor Willex will show up later but it's not a focus so I won't clog up the tag, Moderate depictions of violence, Multi POV, Romance, The boys are werewolves, Will CW chapters where I can for violence, dark themes, sorry for the whiplash, there's a lot of fluff interspersed with the seriousness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:00:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28712421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petalpusher/pseuds/petalpusher
Summary: "It was the sight of a tear rolling down Luke's cheek as he thrashed that froze her feet to the floor. The other two boys looked like they were close to tears themselves, and she knew then that whatever these boys were dealing with, it scared them way more than it was scaring her."Julie Molina's life changes forever when her dad shelters a band of werewolves from the vicious hunters of LA.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 122
Kudos: 326





	1. Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a week or two ago and finally got the courage to try and post it somewhere where people can see. Please let me know your thoughts/if you're enjoying it! I will try to update regularly but I'm very inconsistent, currently I have the second chapter in progress.
> 
> CW right off the bat for descriptions of a wound.

Julie was sitting in her mom's studio for the first time in almost a year. She hadn't turned on the lights, as though navigating in the dark and bumping into things would help her to not break down. The effect was negligible, but under the filtered moonlight the white sheets that covered the furnishings almost glowed with an ethereal light. It could have almost been magical. Or haunted.

Shrugging off the idea with more than a little discomfort, Julie made her way to the piano. It was late, her dad and Carlos were almost certainly asleep by now. Playing now could wake them up, but she couldn't help but scramble at the shred of an urge she felt, to tug the sheet off the piano and put her fingers on the keys. Maybe this once, in the darkness that hid all the memories on the walls, she could do it...

A sudden bang reverberated through the studio like a clap of thunder, and Julie screamed before she could stop herself. It took her a moment to regain her bearings and realise that someone had all but kicked the barn doors open, and four figures were stumbling in from the cold night air. She heard a faint thud as one hit the ground, and while she half ducked behind the piano, yelling began to erupt in the room. Light stung her eyes as someone flipped the switch by the door, and Julie had more questions than answers when she craned her neck and saw that it wasn't burglars as she had thought.

"Papi?" Julie cried incredulously, at the same time Ray Molina gaped across the room at her and choked, "Julie?"  
A moment of silence, then she shouted "Who the hell are these guys?" as he blurted "What are you doing out of bed, mi amor?"

Julie blinked, gaping back at her father, before a groan drew her eyes to the three strangers that her father had brought in. Two were kneeling on the floor panting, one ripping the tug cord out of his hoodie, the other kneeling and hovering his hands over the third figure like he didn't know what to do with himself. The third figure....

"Who are they and why is he bleeding on mom's rug!?" Julie cried, her knuckles almost as white as the sheet beneath them. The third individual was groaning in pain, holding his leg. A massive gash split the fabric of the jeans on his calf, and the flesh underneath gaped open, bleeding freely. "We have to call 911," Julie determined, digging in her pockets for her phone. Almost in unison, the other occupants of the room screamed in protest, and Julie froze in place, not understanding.

With a look on his face Julie didn't like one bit, her father slowly shook his head at her. "Don't call 911. Help me move this table," he instructed, and when she didn't move, he put his hands together in a plea. "I promise I will explain everything after, but right now we need to act quickly. This boy is going to bleed out very soon." Julie glanced at each of the disheveled boys on the floor in turn, her gaze lingering on the grevious wound, then nodded shakily. It was as though the room itself breathed a sigh of relief, and she moved to help her father.

Together they lifted the coffee table, both of them trying to ignore the rattling of the teacup her mother left behind the last time she was there. They set the table down off the rug, and her father took a corner and walked it back, sending swirls of dust into the air. And right there on the floor, to Julie's shock, was a hatch.  
"Dad, what--"  
"After, mija. Just lift it, we're going to move him." She had seen her dad this focussed before, sure, but this time it seemed different. He kept glancing at the windows, and moved to close the barn doors before returning to the three panicked boys on the floor.

Now that Julie had a moment to collect her thoughts, she realised they were just that: boys. Barely older than her, disheveled, smeared with dirt. All of them had backpacks that looked as though they had been to hell and back. Two of them carried bags she recognised as guitar carriers, a detail that struck her as odd. The first had dark hair, and he was running his hands through his hair, speaking too fast to catch. The next was blond, and he was busy using the drawstring from his hoodie to try and make a tourniquet for the guy with the injured leg. She couldn't really see the latter, because he was sluggishly rolling around on the floor, but his hair was brown and scruffy. As her father instructed them, the two uninjured boys stood and heaved the brunet's arms across their shoulders, and she saw him feebly try to support himself on his good leg before his entire body sagged. He must have passed out. She hoped he only passed out.

The three of them breezed past her almost like she wasn't there, descending the staircase that had been revealed behind the hatch when she opened it. She was so focused on the blood she didn't even stop to look down there, but now her father was stopped at the upper landing, grasping her shoulders. "I'll explain. I promise. Stay here, okay?"

Julie nodded absently, watching as he turned and hurried down the stairs. He left her above in the studio, quiet once more. The silence in a place that was once so full of light and joy was almost enough to make her want to bail, but it was ultimately the sight of the dark stain on the rug that pushed her to disobey and follow her father. That, and the curiosity that burned through her confusion. One foot after the other she followed her dad down, and she could hear moans of pain were starting up again. She was glad he wasn't dead, but now there was something intermixed with the sounds that sparked a new dread altogether. Almost like a growling, too deep to be human. For a moment fear battled her curiosity and lost, and she rounded the corner to find the most incredible sight.

It almost looked like a bomb shelter from a movie. Six beds like cots lined the room, and at the end closest to the entrance, an infirmary almost like the one at her school was tucked in behind a curtain. This had been thrust aside and her father was already cutting the leg of the injured boy's pants off from the knee down. On the table the boy thrashed, that animalistic growling growing more prominent as his friends moved to hold his arms down. 

"What's he doing?" Julie breathed, afraid of the answer. His fingernails were ripping at the sheet below him.  
Her father steadily continued to cut the fabric and didn't look up as he replied, "I have to clean and stitch this wound. He's going to get anxious and you need to keep him calm." Julie was pretty sure he wasn't even talking to her. But being at this end as her dad prepared to clean in the open gash was too much for her, and if she could help calm him down, she had to try. As deeply unsettling as those sounds were, she had never seen anyone look so desperate and afraid.

Quietly she circled the bed and his friends shared a look as they followed her progress. She awkwardly smiled, but she was sure the tension made it more like a grimace. The boys were holding down the patient's arms as he thrashed, and as he threw his head back and screamed in a way no person should, she was starting to wonder if he was in pain, or if something else was happening. As his teeth gnashed in an inhuman snarl, his teeth were visible and all wrong.  
"Luke, don't lose it," the blond was saying, gripping Luke's arm with white knuckles.  
"It's gonna be okay, you can do this, buddy," the dark-haired boy across the bed continued. "You can keep it under control. Just until he's done."

A spike of concern shot through Julie like lightning as she wondered if there was some other unnatural context to what was happening, and for a moment she thought the room would become unbearable. It was the sight of a tear rolling down Luke's cheek as he thrashed that froze her feet to the floor. The other two boys looked like they were close to tears themselves, and she knew then that whatever these boys were dealing with, it scared them way more than it was scaring her. 

"He's kicking, I need you to hold him," her father commanded.  
"Reggie, get his leg," said the blond, and the dark-haired boy glanced at him.  
"Are you sure? Alex we're barely holding one of his arms each," he pointed out, and as if he had been waiting for a poetic moment to do so, Luke thrashed with renewed force, a guttural roar bouncing off the concrete walls.  
"I'll try and calm him, just get his leg. The man can't stitch if he's being kicked in the face," Alex grunted, scrambling to throw his weight across Luke and take over the arm Reggie had been holding. Reggie moved to put his weight on Luke's good leg, and the two of them struggled against the increasingly violent shudders beneath them. Luke wasn't calming down, and he was getting hairy. Really hairy. In the literal sense.

"You're losing him," Ray pointed out. "If he transforms while I'm trying to suture we're going to tear all sorts of new holes."  
"He just got shot, give him a break!" Defended Reggie, earning him a look from Alex.  
"He got shot!?" Julie blurted, incredulous. "What do you mean 'transform', dad?"  
Once again, her dad breezed past her questions. "He hasn't got time for a break. You understand how much blood he's lost?"

The room shifted then, and while her father tried to clean the wound and the boys struggled to hold their friend down, Julie felt useless. Luke was gnashing his teeth and throwing his head around while her dad struggled. An idea began to form in her head, and she tentatively circled to the head of the bed, trying to block out the noise and the panic. She stood behind Luke, and placed her hands on his cheeks, almost cradling his jaw with her fingertips. He snapped at her -- actually snapped at her fingers -- but she kept her hold firm, and leaned forward to block the harsh light from his face.

"What is she doing?" She heard one of the boys ask.  
"Hold his leg!" Her dad snapped in response, with a forcefulness that didn't seem real coming from his mouth.

Julie did the only thing she could think to do: the same thing her mom used to do when she was having a panic attack. She held him, firm but not tightly, and hummed a quiet tune. She tried her best to ignore the roaring and spitting and focus on keeping her tune steady. At first he thrashed more than ever and she feared she had made things worse, but she kept at it, and slowly he began to struggle less. His eyes were still clenched shut and he was drenched in sweat, but her humming seemed to do the trick. It felt like hours she had to stand there and soothe him, afraid to stop in case he went wild again. It wasn't until she heard the rattle of the steel trolley as her dad rolled it away from the bed that she dared to stop, removing her hands from this stranger's face and looking up to see the others staring at her.

"How'd you do that?" Alex asked, raising a brow.  
"Maybe she's a witch," Reggie theorised.  
"I'm standing right here," Julie hissed. "And keep your voices down," she added, with less force. She was pretty sure Luke was asleep and she didn't want to have to do that again. It worked, but she was pretty sure it was weird for everyone involved.  
Ray stepped back, tossing his bloodied gloves in the trash. "I'll need to keep an eye on him over the next few days. You can stay here, there's a shower upstairs but I would leave it a while, just to be safe." Then, he turned to Julie, raising a brow. "Sweetie, come upstairs and help me with this rug."

Julie nodded, and her father moved to wash his hands. She felt the gazes of the two boys on her, and turned awkwardly. "I'm Julie," she said, uselessly, not knowing what else to lead with.  
"Alex," said the blond, then pointed to his friend. "And this is Reggie." She'd already caught their names in the chaos, but she nodded politely anyway. 

Before she could even begin to grasp for conversation topics, her dad called her. She gave the boys an awkward wave, spared a glance to Luke sound asleep on the bed, then followed her dad upstairs. They closed the hatch behind them, replaced the rug but not the table, and her dad motioned for them to sit. It felt weird for both of them to be back in her mom's studio for the first time under such unusual circumstances. 

"Julie, your mom and I... we didn't want you to find out this way," her dad began carefully, clasping his hands together.  
"To find out.... that you have a secret basement?" Julie tried, attempting humour. Her dad gave her a smile for her benefit, but it faded. "What is he?"  
Her dad gave her a long look. Maybe he was considering a lie, but she knew what she had heard. She had seen those teeth. "The three of them," he began, leaning back on the sofa. "Are werewolves."  
Julie stared at him for a long moment. When it was clear he wasn't going to laugh and say sike, she nodded slowly. She didn't exactly have a better theory to explain it. The sharp smell of blood hit her nose as a breeze blew under the doors, and her gaze was drawn to the bloodied spot on the rug. "What happened to them? Why come here?"

"That," her dad began carefully. "Is a complicated question. Your mom... well she had a big network when she was younger. She had the Petal Pushers, they played all over. She was the one who found out about all of this. LA has an underground, and not in the traditional sense. Not everyone in this town is human, but they're all like us. People with families. But not everyone sees it that way."  
"Those boys didn't look dangerous," Julie observed. "They're just, you know. Some dudes."  
"Exactly. Your mom and I, we signed up to a network. You know the phone tree for Carlos' baseball team?" Julie nodded, and he smiled softly. "It's kind of like that. We're one of dozens of families across the city who offer shelter for those who know where to look for it. We've never actually had to use it before tonight," he explained. "I got the call, I answered."

"So, let me get this straight. You and mom built a bomb shelter under this studio to hide werewolves?" Julie huffed out a big breath of air. She wasn't in a position to deny any of that after everything she had seen. "Okay. I believe you."  
"Thanks... I think."  
"So.... what happened to those guys?" Julie asked, lowering her voice in case they could hear them from under the floor.  
"Someone was after them. It happens. There are...." Her dad trailed off, studying her face. Maybe he could see how tired she was, because he seemed to drop the thought. "I know you have a lot of questions, but it's a heavy topic and I still have to clean up this rug. I want you to go to bed."  
"But dad--"  
"Go to bed Julie, it's a school night. Don't worry, i'll answer all your questions another time. We're safe and they'll be out of the basement just as soon as that boy is healed, okay?"

Julie nodded. "Okay. Goodnight dad," she conceded, standing to walk to her room. But as she closed the barn doors behind her, her gaze lingered on the hatch in the floor. There was no way in hell she would be able to drop it that easily. 

As she walked up to her room, she tried three times to text Flynn, but no matter what she typed the words just couldn't come out in any way that sounded rational. There were cute werewolves in the basement she never knew they had, and Julie was presently despairing at the fact that she was expected to continue life as normal with that knowledge. She had so many questions, but her dad almost certainly expected her to stay away from the three people who could answer them: Reggie, the awkward one; Alex, the sensible one; and Luke, the mystery. Whose animalistic teeth and snarling still flashed across her mind when she tried to close her eyes and sleep. 

Julie was still searching inside herself for the fear she should have been feeling when she finally drifted off to sleep.


	2. A Voice I Can't Forget

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, thank you so much for your kind comments, I'm humbled and thrilled! <3
> 
> Thanks for reading and being interested, here's chapter 2. Luke's perspective this time
> 
> CW briefly describing what stitches feel like

Luke sat bolt upright in a cold sweat, reeling at his unfamiliar surroundings. His heart raced in his chest and he felt the thunderous rumble in his veins that threatened his control, but he was well used to stamping it down by now. He had no idea how long it had been, but he peeled the blanket back to find his leg exactly as he had feared he would: very very bandaged.

The room he was in was stuffy, stark white, and completely empty except for his fine self. Reggie and Alex were nowhere to be seen, and he debated whether he should go and look. He only very vaguely remembered arriving at all, but he certainly knew there were stairs and some kind of garage above them. He resisted the urge to touch his leg, reflecting on how lucky they were to be alive at all considering how badly even just a graze from a silver tipped weapon had affected him.

Luke swung his legs carefully over the side of the bed and tested his weight on his bad leg. There was tension in his leg, the sutures tugging at his flesh. He tried not to think too hard about the sickening sensation and focus instead on being very gentle on his leg, but a jab of pain killed his resolve to seek his friends out. The last thing he needed was torn stitches. 

As though the universe was throwing him a bone, he heard footsteps on the stairs as his friends carried plates down to the basement, followed carefully by the man who had answered their distress call. He had a tray in his hands, and as he rounded the corner he made a momentary face of surprise upon seeing Luke awake and sitting up. He recovered quickly, bringing the tray over. "Glad you're up. I've got food if you feel up to it," he offered.  
Luke consulted himself, and although he didn't feel much of anything, after taking one look at the spread on the tray he decided it couldn't help to try and eat something. "You didn't have to do this," he mumbled uselessly, not knowing what else to say. He wasn't good with adults at the best of times, but the man only chuckled.  
"Nonsense. Eat your bacon," he dismissed, handing him the tray carefully. "How's the leg?"

Luke considered the question. "Still attached, so not as bad as it could be," he smirked. "Not sure I can make those stairs on it though."  
"No need, I'll bring everything down here for the time being. It's best you all lay low for a while," he recommended, throwing a meaningful look at Luke's friends. "They could be actively looking for you, now that they know you're around."

Hunters. Human purists. Whatever the hell you wanna call them, they were bad news. And now the three of them were probably on the radar of every Hunter in town. They had been so careful... but apparently, not careful enough.

"Thanks for this. Sorry, I don't know..." Luke trailed off.  
"Ray. Ray Molina. It's nice to meet you," answered Ray quickly. "Listen, I have to run to a job today. There's an intercom to the house by the stairs but you can only use it in emergencies, you understand? Otherwise Reggie has my number. My sister in law and my son don't know about any of this, I'd rather they didn't have to find out via intercom that three strangers are in our secret basement unless it's life or death."  
"Thank you, Mr. Molina," Alex replied steadily. "For all of this." Ray had the most patient smile Like had ever seen, and he found himself focussing on his food at little too much. Parental understanding shouldn't have stressed him out so much, but it did.

"What about Julie?" Reggie asked suddenly. "Can we have her number?" Alex sucked air in through his teeth and slapped the back of his hand across Reggie's chest. Confused, Luke looked to Ray, who was folding his arms and looking bemused.  
"What?" Reggie hissed at Alex defensively, rubbing his chest. "For emergencies! What if he doesn't pick up?"  
"Don't ask the man for his daughter's number," Alex sighed, looking exhausted. Luke furrowed his brow. He remembered now, there was a girl when they first came into the garage, but everything after that was a blur.  
Ray, to his credit, looked like he was trying not to laugh. "I'd prefer it if we kept my kids out of this. I’m sure you understand.”

Luke receded a bit. Although keeping a pack of werewolves away from your kids was the bare minimum of parenting, he could tell this man was proud of his kids, the way his voice softened when he spoke about them. It mixed his emotions up, so he tried to think of something else. “Reggie, is my guitar okay?”  
“You take better care of it than you do yourself, ‘course it’s okay,” he scoffed.  
“It’s upstairs in the studio,” Ray explained. “Bit too awkward to bring down here in the rush last night. I don’t get home until later tonight, but if you can hold off til then my wife had some old amps in the loft. I’ll dig em up for you, keep you occupied down here while that heals.”  
“Ugh, can he be my dad too?” Asked Reggie, and both Luke and Alex gave him a look.  
“Don’t be weird,” Alex sighed into his hands.  
“That would be great Mr. Molina,” Luke replied a little too eagerly. He had no idea what he’d do while he waited for this guy to get home though. 

“Okay boys. I’m off, behave, stay in the basement,” Ray instructed. He disappeared upstairs, leaving the three of them to their own devices.  
“He seems nice!” Reggie declared, once the hatch had shut behind their host.  
“Despite your best efforts,” Alex rolled his eyes, then turned to Luke. “How are you feeling?”  
“Like I slept way too long,” Luke replied honestly. There was a heavy silence between the three of them. "This is bad, you guys."  
"I know!" Reggie burst, and it was clear he had been waiting for someone to address the elephant in the room. "How'd he find out about us? We've been so careful," he despaired, flopping back in his seat.  
Alex shifted uncomfortably. "Not careful enough."

Luke grit his teeth. He'd always said that their condition shouldn't hold them back from their dreams, and he stuck by that. This didn't stop the worry growing in his gut that this might not have happened if he'd only been interested in something like baking or flower arrangements. Instead they had a band, and things had been going really, really well right up until last night, when they exited the stage door and a man in a bandit mask had leaned out the window of an unmarked van and opened fire. If it hadn't been for that bar staffer coming outside to take out the trash and scaring him away, they probably would have been dead meat. He had known exactly what he was doing; the crossbow bolts were tipped with silver.

Reggie groaned, "We might never get to play a show again. Not if we wanna keep our heads on our shoulders."  
"That's bullshit!" Luke started, beginning to throw his legs out of bed, forgetting that he had a fresh wound. He winced and lowered his leg back onto the mattress begrudgingly. Speeches didn't feel the same if he couldn't pace around. "Why should we have to give up what we have because some pickled old dude with a hero complex decides it's his mission in life to have us dead?"  
"He wasn't that old, bro," Alex pointed out. "Thirty something at most, really."  
"Whatever," Luke grumbled. "If we get big enough we'll have security to handle people like that."  
"Yeah, the problem with that is we have to get there alive first," Alex pointed out, flipping his drumstick in his hand.

Luke watched it spin as he chewed his waffles, feeling a pang of guilt. Alex's drum set was still sitting at the venue, and while they hadn't discussed it aloud yet, they all knew that going back there to get it would be suicide if Ray's theory was correct. Werewolves weren't so common that you could just throw a stone and hit one. The three of them were a payload for anyone looking, and anyone with half a cognitive thought would figure out they left important stuff behind.

"Can you hear that?" Luke was pulled from his thoughts by Reggie, who was getting up and creeping towards the stairwell. "Someone's talking up there." Alex got up too, and they both craned their necks. Luke furrowed his brow, scooting along the bed to listen, but he could only hear very faint murmuring of voices. "What? Who is it?" he demanded, but his friends only hushed him. Luke had been awake for ten minutes and was already frustrated by his leg. He strained to listen, but only heard the faintest words from sentences. It wasn’t Ray. It sounded like two kids.

He caught "--nothing! Go--" and then the voices faded as footsteps moved. For a moment he thought they left, but then footsteps started again, getting closer. Then, a scrubbing sound as someone moved the rug. Reggie and Alex ducked out of sight either side of the stairwell as the metal handle clattered and someone lifted it, and Luke held his breath, certain they were discovered, but nobody came down the stairs. There was the rustle of fabric, a gentle thud, then the hatch closed again. The scrubbing of the rug started up again, and the boys tentatively peered around the corner. Reggie scrambled up the stairwell and came back down with a black tote bag with a turtle on it.

"What the hell is that?" Luke asked, raising a brow. Reggie brought it over to the wheeled table near Luke's infirmary bed and set it down carefully, pulling a smaller bag out of it.  
"Whoa, sweet!" Reggie exclaimed, digging through it to find a bag of starburst, some gushers, a box of toffee and a loose handful of warheads. "Literally."  
"What's this?" Alex asked, reaching in to pull out a long zippered case with a power cord wrapped around it. There was a note tucked into the cord, which he read aloud. "This is my brother's, you can borrow it until he notices it's gone. Please be careful with it."  
"Is that a switch? What games?" Reggie began, dropping the bag of candy right on Luke's leg.  
"Ow!" Luke hissed, throwing a spare pillow at him.  
"Hands off Peters, I saw it first," Alex rebutted defensively, shielding the case with his body from Reggie's hands.

Luke rolled his eyes and set his breakfast tray on the table next to him, scooting a bit to reach the tote. There was only one other thing in there, a tiny Bluetooth speaker. This one also had a note, and Luke carefully unfolded it. It read:

'Not too loud, okay? - J'

Luke grinned, reading the looping handwriting a few times as though looking for something else. He wasn't sure what exactly. He didn't really care to worry about it too much.

"His kid left us these?" Luke asked, finally tearing his eyes from the note.  
"Yeah, she seems nice," Reggie said fondly, although Luke wasn't sure if he was fond of the girl or the box of gushers in his hands. "I can tell we're going to be great friends."  
"You met her once," Alex deadpanned, his nose scrunching in a doubtful expression.  
"She calmed Luke down from a frenzy, I feel like you can't be a bad person if you can do something like that," Reggie asserted, talking past the candy he'd just shovelled into his mouth like coal into a locomotive.  
Luke froze in place. "What are you talking about?"

Alex and Reggie exchanged a look he didn't like one bit. A non-verbal conversation passed between the two of them, and whatever it was, Alex seemed to win. "Nothing bad happened. A girl held your face and you cried then passed out, that's all," he said, trying his best to keep his tone dismissive. It didn't work.  
"What!?" Luke exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "I think I'm just gonna go an' hand myself over to the poachers, boys. This is too much for me."  
"Nah, it was cute. Like a lullaby," Reggie mused, a fond smile on his face marred by the candy dye all over his teeth.  
"Never, ever speak of this again," Luke demanded. "I mean it."

Alex and Reggie exchanged that look again. Luke crossed his arms and frowned. "Need I remind you I could have died... or hurt someone," he muttered, feeling his face heat up. Most people would be embarassed about the crying, but what really got Luke was people seeing him with such little control over himself. He'd seen a shock induced frenzy transformation before, and it wasn't cute. It was vicious.

His friends didn't pay much attention, going back to digging through the bag of candy. His eye caught the note on the sheet next to him, and he found himself skimming the swirling script again. A soft tune came to him, and not in the usual way his songs did. Through the fog of the night before, he heard the ghost of a melody someone had hummed to him, and saw a halo of hair blocking the harsh light above. Luke felt his embarrassment ease just a tiny bit, replaced by something else. "Reggie, can you throw me my backpack? I wanna write somethin' down."


	3. Right Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot thank you all enough for your enthusiasm <3 Enjoy!

Julie continued to leave care packages for the next two weeks. They couldn't be anything crazy or her dad would notice. She felt bad for sneaking stuff in without telling him, but whenever she considered those guys stuck in her basement she couldn't help but think of the time when she was 12 and got thrown off a horse while on vacation. She'd been confined to bed for a week, and her dad's idea of entertaining her was giving her all the books from the hotel lobby, which was not a great selection to start with. 

In light of this, she decided to show a little mercy to these poor people trapped in the secret basement, and on her way home from school she would stop at the corner store to pick up candy. She would drop the bag in the hatch on days her dad left before her, so they had time to stash her gifts before he saw. Most times it was quiet, although she did hear one morning the faint tinny sound of Twisted Sister on the speaker she had sent down the first day. Perhaps an early riser, or maybe an all nighter. Knowing boys, the latter seemed more likely.

She should have known that it wouldn't be enough to just keep anonymously dropping candy down there and not meet them. Her dad had promised answers, but all he really told her was the history of LA werewolves, an impersonal lesson that left her with more questions than answers. With that kind of info, talking to them seemed like an inevitable horizon she was hurtling towards whether her dad wanted her to or not. To her credit, when she finally broke the rules for good and spoke to them, it wasn't exactly her idea.

It was a sunny Saturday. Carlos was at baseball and her dad was out shooting a wedding, and Julie was enjoying doing her semi-regular basement supply run during daylight hours, without anyone around to sneak past. Today it was a bag of gummi bears and a handful of peanut butter cups. The irony of the latter item only occurred to her after she’d bought them, and by then it was too late. Not that she was 100% convinced on the werewolf thing, having never seen concrete proof. The more she thought about that injured boy snarling, the fuzzier the events of the evening became, like her brain was trying to rationalise a more logical explanation. There was a miniscule chance her dad had been messing with her and this was just some youth protection program he signed up for. On the other hand, it wasn’t in his nature to lie for fun, and there was more evidence to support his claims than there was to refute it. In some ways, she almost wanted it to be a joke.

As if fate itself sought to punish her for her doubts, Julie had scarcely opened the barn doors to her mom’s studio when they were pushed towards her, and she only barely managed to avoid being bowled over as the biggest dog she had ever seen came barging out with all the force of a lightning bolt. Julie screamed as the lanky mass of black fur shot across the small courtyard, although when it heard her it came skidding to an awkward stop, limbs entangling with each other. Julie gripped the door with white knuckles, trying to calm her pounding heart. Soft fur brushed her fingers and she flinched away as a second dog -- a second wolf -- walked out of the open door, looking up at her with an intelligence that didn’t belong on any animal’s face. This one was pale, almost white, and it crossed the courtyard to the other almost as if to have a conversation. As the shock and awe of the moment washed off, worry worked its way in.

“What do you guys think you’re doing!? Get inside before someone sees you!” Julie scolded, glancing around. She felt kinda silly as soon as she said it, realising that as far as yards go, theirs was as private as any without a moat.   
“Whatcha’ got?” asked someone alarmly close beside her, and she started again to find the third boy -- the third werewolf -- standing beside her with the most smug look on his face. Luke snorted at her reaction, but only for a moment before he was moving in on the bag in her hand. Julie tugged it away, annoyed.  
“Is that all you have to say?” She demanded, and he balked. Now that he was vertical, not screaming, and in the sunlight, she was alarmed at how cute he was. Granted, he looked like he hadn’t slept in 72 hours, but the eye bags suited him in a strange way. In any case, being cute wouldn’t excuse him from being rude.   
“Sorry. Candy has officially become the most interesting part of my day,” he apologised sheepishly. “I’m Luke.”  
“I know,” Julie hummed, opening the bag and tossing him a pack of peanut butter cups. “Julie.”  
“I know,” he echoed, like he was the smartest guy on the planet. He tore into the wrapper like it murdered his family.

Julie took a second while he was distracted to glance at his leg. Loose navy sweatpants covered the injury, so she couldn’t assess the damage, but she did notice he was leaning on his good leg. A sound distracted her, and she glanced up to see the other two wrestling into the garden, the bush they were rolling over whipping about violently. She sucked in a breath through her teeth, shaking her head.

“My dad can’t know they came out here,” she said quietly.   
“We’ll clean up after ourselves. Promise,” Luke hummed, mouth full. “I know we broke the rules, but it’s not our fault. One more day down there and they’d have started chewing the furniture.”  
Julie smirked, and tried not to be too mad. It was getting hard to be, with the image of werewolves chewing a sofa in her head. It couldn’t have been easy being stuck down there. “Stretching the legs, huh? I guess i can see that. How come you aren’t out there?”  
Luke raised a brow, tapping his leg. “Gotta leave it another week. Turns out rearranging your skin and bones is pretty bad for wounds.”  
Julie snorted, despite herself. “Who knew.”

She felt the tidal wave of questions rising in her throat, but she stamped them down with determination. Some of them were probably silly, or things she could find out on her own. In her efforts to collect her thoughts, one slipped through in an effort to fill the growing silence.

"How's your leg anyway?" She blurted, at the same time he said "Thank you for the speaker." They looked at each other, and Julie tried and failed to suppress a laugh. He grinned as though it was all he was born to do. But before they could gather themselves, they were interrupted by the dark wolf trotting over and sniffing at the bag in Julie's hand. The pale one followed over more sensibly. Up close, she balked at how big they actually were -- bigger than any dog she'd ever seen. Despite his appearance, he was wagging his tail.

"He wants candy?" Julie asked incredulously. "Can he even… is he allowed?"  
"You're worried about that now after I just inhaled two of these?" Luke asked, raising a brow. "You tryna kill me or somethin'? Because the other guy did a way better job."  
"Not yet I'm not. Give it some time," she smirked, and he had the grace to pretend to look afraid. A wet nose nudging her hand startled her from her distraction, and she dropped the bag as the wolf in front of her was now trying to dig through it. "Why doesn't he just change and grab it normally?"  
"Reggie here," Luke began, with laughter in his voice, "Is naked as the day he was born."  
"What?? And he's running around in my yard!?" Julie exclaimed, but this only made him laugh more. Reggie stopped sniffing at the bag to look at Luke.  
"We try not to change while we're in clothes, makes things uncomfortable and looks goofy as all hell. Nobody takes a wolf wearing pants seriously."  
"Okay, so what if you need to change back? Do you just run around naked?"   
"We have backpacks. For emergencies, you know." He shrugged, like a wolf wearing a backpack was any less ridiculous than a wolf wearing pants.

Julie knelt down and picked up the bag, showing Reggie some mercy and ripping open some Reese's for him. Once he was happy, Alex trotted over and sat down expectantly. She sighed, repeating the process and trying her best to look put out. It was on thin ice she walked, trying not to express the fact that this was the coolest thing that had ever happened to her.

"Do you play piano?" Luke asked suddenly, leaning down as she knelt to help his friends, almost as though he was shoeing in on the brief attention she was paying to his friends. "There's a real nice one under the sheet in there."  
"You went poking around?" Julie asked, frowning and avoiding the question. "That's my mom's stuff. If you broke anything I swear--"  
"We were very careful. Promise. So that song is hers?" He pressed, shuffling his feet awkwardly.   
Julie blinked, freezing in place. "Song?"  
"Yeah, on the piano. If she wrote that, she's real talented."  
"She was," Julie agreed quietly. Before he had a chance to give her pity or condolences, she stood with the bag. 

"When you're done stretching your legs, you have a good three hours before Carlos gets home. There's Netflix in the living room. Leave no trace, I mean it," she insisted. Alex nudged between her and Luke to walk inside, and Julie flinched as the most unnatural sound she'd ever heard began on the other side of the door. She stumbled away instinctively, bumping into Reggie. If humans grew instantly that's what it would have sounded like: the popping and shifting of flesh and bone. Before she had time to be horrified, Alex stuck his human head around the corner of the barn door, bare shoulder poking out.

Julie was thankfully out of view of his body, but Luke was not. He rolled his eyes and muttered "C'mon man." Alex ignored him, training his gaze on Julie.  
"Can we do this whenever they're not home?" He asked, pleading. As if to agree, Reggie whined.  
"No! What if they come home early one day and I'm not here to cover for you? What if my auntie shows up?" Julie shook her head. "It's too dangerous."  
"Come on Julie," Luke begged. "We've been living like doomsday preppers for two weeks. You have any idea what it's like to share limited airflow with Reggie?"  
Julie looked at the two of them and sighed. "Compromise. Only when I am home, okay? My dad's a photographer, he's usually doing weddings on weekends, and Carlos has sport and his friends. Weekdays I'd prefer to study in peace."  
Luke and Alex glanced at each other, grinning slowly. "Thanks Julie. We'll be so careful!" Alex laughed and disappeared, hopefully to put on some pants. Reggie followed him in promptly, and she tried to ignore that sound again.

"It means a lot," Luke said, hovering outside the door with her. "Really. Plus we won't always need to be in the house. Your dad gave us some amps to play with, so we've been keeping occupied... it's just a shame about Alex."  
"What is?" Julie asked, picking up the wrappers.   
"His drum kit. We had to leave it at the venue when we were attacked." He shrugged. "Can't exactly carry it on his back. There's an old one in your mom's studio but it's definitely seen better days. The cymbals look like modern art, and not in a good way."

Julie looked up at him, considering the guitar cases. "You guys are in a band?"  
Luke wrung his hands together briefly before separating them to rest one elbow above him on the door, clearly trying not to look thrilled that she asked. "Yeah, we actually had a big gig the night it happened. Sunset Curve, maybe you've heard of us?"  
She hadn't, but she knew better than to blurt that out. She stood and brushed herself off, then squared her gaze on him. "A werewolf band," she considered aloud. "This, I have to see."  
Luke grinned slowly, shifting from foot to foot. "Does right now work for you?"  
Julie was very clearly in her pajamas, complete with fluffy slippers, but she appreciated the vote of confidence in ensuring she didn't have plans first. She returned his smile. "Right now sounds great."

He did a little hop as he disappeared into the studio to tell his friends to get ready, with all the enthusiasm one would expect for a show at Madison Square Garden.


	4. Relighting the Spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julie does a lot of contemplating, and for once it takes her somewhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading!

Julie stared at the guacamole as though it contained all the answers to her problems. She could hear Luke talking about chord progressions with Reggie in the den. Alex was tapping his drumsticks on the coffee table, the urgent beat not helping to settle her mind. It had been a week since she first suggested these movie nights, and in spite of her assertion that it should only happen on weekends, they were on their third Star Wars movie in as many nights. Baseball season was still on for another month, so Carlos still had practices after school. Her dad usually tried to stay for them to be supportive, which was perfect when you were sneaking werewolves around your house. 

Tonight was Saturday, otherwise known as a gold mine of free time. More so now than usual, even; her dad was shooting his old school friend’s wedding five hours away, so he wouldn’t be home. Julie hadn’t known until he’d come to her to ask her to make sure their _guests_ were fed that night and the next morning. It concerned her how quickly she had schemed for Carlos to spend the night with their auntie, almost reflexively plotting to spend time with her new friends. Her logic was that it would be easier to cook enough pasta for four people without her ever-perceptive little brother around to notice. 

Now that she was in it, her concerns were starting to catch up with her. Flynn had texted her twice just that evening, begging her to hang out, and Julie had made excuses both times, claiming illness. A part of her desperately wanted her friend to know, but the other part knew it wasn’t her secret to tell. To make matters worse, she’d spent the morning listening to Luke and Reggie riffing in the studio, and she felt something she never thought she would again: a yearning to make music herself. It had been nearly three years, and she’d resigned herself to the fact that her spark had burned out. Now she wasn’t so sure, and it scared her. She’d told the boys she didn’t play, that all the stuff in there was her mom’s. Both of these deceptions combined with hiding her involvement with her dad’s _guests_ piled up into a nice collection of lies that were currently doing somersaults in Julie’s gut.

“You alive back here?” Luke’s voice startled her, and she nearly knocked the bowl of guac off the counter. Julie threw him a look as she sucked in a breath. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”  
“I’m nearly done,” Julie asserted, piling the bowls of snacks onto the tray she’d prepared. “Just… contemplating my choices.”  
“In snacks?” He asked, cocking a brow.  
“In life,” she laughed. “Mostly calculus.” Not that life ever had impeccable timing, but the inconvenience of discovering the supernatural underworld of LA in her senior year was not lost on her. The last thing she had needed was more distractions.   
“Ew. Math,” he replied, screwing up his nose. “Don’t miss that.”

Julie realised then that she had no idea how old these guys were. She figured they were her age, but there was a possibility they had already graduated. “You graduated already?”  
She could have sworn that Luke flinched, but he recovered quickly if so. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but no. Dropped out,” he grinned, thought it seemed strained.   
“Because of the…?” she asked, trailing off. The best she could do was gesture vaguely to him, which apparently amused him, because he snorted with laughter.   
“The condition? Nah, it was the band. The condition came after,” he shook his head as if to say ‘typical Julie’. As if this is what they did. Julie couldn’t judge, because it was getting alarmingly difficult to remember they had met a week ago. Sort of.   
  
As he smiled, her gaze was drawn to his teeth. Perfectly normal. When she glanced up again, he was looking at her with a strange expression. Amusement, mixed with something else. He’d definitely noticed her looking at his teeth, and she felt terrible. Desperate to change the subject, she gestured to the massive bowl of chips that wouldn’t fit on the tray. “Could you give me a hand with this?” Luke nodded, moving a little too quickly to her aid, but she set off for the lounge with her tray before they had time to be too close. She felt ashamed for staring, and wanted to distract herself with Reggie’s favourite movie as quickly as possible. Clearly he shared the sentiment, because when she walked in he threw up his hands.

“Finally! I’m so excited,” Reggie grinned. “The thrilling conclusion to the saga.”  
“We all know that’s not true,” Alex snorted, his feet on the table. He spun his stick in his fingers, watching the snack tray as it descended before him. Reggie threw a pillow at him, narrowly missing Luke. 

Julie flopped into the armchair, actively avoiding having to share the sofa with the three of them. Partially because they were still mostly strangers, partially because she was quickly noticing they had a habit of breaking into short but reckless bouts of wrestling, and she didn’t really feel like copping an elbow to the face. Luke took the unoccupied spot on her end of the sofa next to Alex, propping a foot up on the table. She opened her mouth to protest the proximity of his foot to the snacks, when she noticed that his sweatpants were rolled up enough that she could see part of the scar on his leg. It was healed pretty well, although it was easy to compare to the last time she had seen it. The line was clean, and not for the first time she felt the urge to ask exactly what had transpired to leave him with it. Nobody had really spoken about it in detail, and she got the feeling they didn’t really want to talk about it. 

As she pondered this and the scrolling intro to the movie blared on the screen, it took her a moment to notice Reggie looking at her looking at Luke. He raised his eyebrows, and she glanced quickly away, trying to focus on the movie. The same concerns that had troubled her in the kitchen followed her, and she found it difficult to pay attention with so much on her mind. It was a good thing she had seen the movie before, because most of it passed without her full attention.

When it was finally over, it was getting pretty late, but the boys naturally wanted to make the most of their limited time above ground level. Julie was starting to feel tired herself, and she hadn’t spent the day running around the courtyard and wrestling like the three of them had. Regardless, she didn’t push it when they put on some action movie about a driver. If she had to sit and spiral into stress about her web of lies, she’d rather do it in the den with background noise than alone in her room. In spite of this, she actually managed to half pay attention to Transporter, and it wasn’t until halfway through the flick she glanced over at the boys again. 

She couldn’t help again looking at Luke’s scar, thinking about someone shooting at him. It filled her with a feeling she couldn’t name. It was warmer than stress, angrier too. Why would anyone want to hurt someone who had done nothing wrong? The way he spoke about his band, it seemed all he wanted was to make music with his friends. It was hard to reconcile that with someone wanting to hurt him. He had a kind smile, and even when he was in pain he had fought so hard not the transform against his will. Her mind wandered for a second, thinking about Alex and Reggie. There was no mistaking the two of them no matter what form they took, so it must have been the same for Luke. He was the only one whose other side (so to speak) she hadn't seen yet. As she contemplated this, he shifted in his sleep, and for a horrible second she thought she had been caught staring, but it wasn't so. He, along with the other two boys, was sound asleep.

Julie gawked. All three of them, asleep on the sofa. Alex had one of his legs _on_ Reggie, who was drooling unchecked all over a throw cushion. Luke’s head lolled toward her as he snored lightly, his leg still propped on the table. She felt embarrassed for thinking they might turn into wolves while they slept, and wondered where she got an idea like that in the first place. As novel as the sight was, staying in the room while they slept felt weird. It wasn’t like the movie was capturing her anyway, so she carefully stood and crept out of the room, footfalls hidden by the sounds of the movie and her monster slippers. At the stairwell she paused, considering going up to bed. But then she thought of something Luke had said last week, and her gaze crept to the door.

The wind outside caught the door as she shut it, and she barely avoided letting it slam. She was more careful at the studio doors, slipping inside carefully. Much like the night they boys had arrived, there was an ethereal light to the studio, though most of the sheets had been removed from the furniture now that people were moving around in there more frequently. She walked over to the piano, which was partially uncovered. Sitting on it was a tidy stack of four sheets, her mother’s neat notations undeniable on the paper. 

It had been around three years, and she still remembered it vividly. The visits to the hospital, the harsh lights, the sound of her little brother pretending not to be sniffling in the back seat on their way home. Julie had been operating in survival mode all this time, telling herself she would just get through to graduation and everything would be fine. The studio reminded her of the passion in life that she couldn’t grasp anymore, so she had been avoiding it all this time. She had avoided so many things to avoid the sadness that chased her like a shadow. Flynn had gone to get a tattoo on her 18th birthday, and Julie was supposed to be there. One breath of the studio sent her dizzy, the disinfectant taking her back to that hospital where her life fell apart. Flynn said she understood, but Julie added it to the tab of things she owed her best friend.

Julie sat down at the piano, holding the pages in her hands. Why now? She couldn’t explain the urge she felt at 1am on a Sunday morning, to come down to the studio she hadn’t been able to enter since her mom died. Her mom had been so many things, and Julie had always cherished that, perhaps to the point that she tried to protect the memory by leaving everything -- even herself -- unchanged. Werewolves were a change she hadn’t been expecting, and Julie realised that for every thing she knew and loved about her mother, there were other things she never got to know, and never would if she didn’t stop clinging to the past. Things like the paper in her hands, uncovered by a bored teenager whose life her mother had indirectly saved. 

Julie looked to the ceiling, to the floating chairs her mother had hung up. The old strings of fairy lights that hadn’t been lit in years. The space was where her mother lived and dreamed, and life belonged in it. There was no benefit in keeping that legacy in the dark… keeping herself in the dark. Julie saw that now. 

Gently, she spread the sheets across the top of the piano. It was dark, but the moonlight through the window was enough to see the music. Julie sucked in a deep breath, her fingers across the keys, and though it had been years she didn’t hesitate for a second. She knew exactly what to do.


	5. Frenzy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter! Enter stage left Flynn ;)
> 
> EDIT: Hey so I noticed the last two chapters have had weird spacing, I think something is messing up between Google docs and rich text when I paste it in. I'll be going through and fixing this in the next day or two, please bear with me until then!
> 
> EDIT 2: Ok we’re good now

Luke sat by the open window as the song came to a close, until only the chirping of nocturnal insects remained. For once, he didn’t know what to do with himself; he was blindsided by the performance. He’d never heard anyone sing like that in person. Even from a window in the house above the studio, he could tell she was incredible. She sang like her heart was breaking, healing, and blooming all at once. His hands shook slightly as he gripped the windowsill, thoughts turning in his head.  
  
“Julie can sing,” Reggie commented, standing behind Luke. “Like, really, _really_ sing.”  
“She told me all that stuff was her mom’s,” Luke thought aloud, to nobody except himself really.  
Alex sighed. “It was her mom’s. You smelled that place, it’s covered in dust.” Luke looked over his shoulder at his friends, considering the situation. Julie hadn’t outright lied, but why would she hide the truth? Alex seemed to see the cogs turning in Luke’s head, because he huffed a breath of annoyance. “People have their reasons for not sharing sensitive things about their life. You of all people should get that,” he pointed out, fixing Luke with a meaningful stare.

He was right, as always. Luke hadn’t been in a state to pay much attention when they first arrived, but even after they had been moving around in it for a few weeks, Luke could smell that the studio had sat undisturbed for quite some time before they showed up. Dust built on shelves, picture frames, instruments. It permeated the sheets thrown over all the furniture. Julie had been confused when he’d mentioned the song sheets on the piano last weekend. If she hadn’t been in there for a long time, it certainly added up. Luke thought of his own mother, lost in another way entirely, and a part of his heart yielded. He understood.  
  
Just when Luke was done considering the fact that Alex was right, he had to go and mess it up. “We should go and make sure she’s okay,” said the blond resolutely.   
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Luke objected. “If you let her know we were listening you’re only gonna embarrass her and then she’ll never talk to us about it.”   
“What makes you think she’s gonna talk about it with us anyway?” Alex scrunched up his nose. “We live in her basement.”   
“She might,” Luke huffed pathetically.   
“It’s only temporary,” Reggie added.

Luke stood and closed the window. As much as he wanted to run down there and ask Julie a million questions about her talent, he could tell she was having a moment. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. He put it down to wolf senses and let the matter drop, returning to the sofa. Reggie took a handful of doritos, seemingly unaffected by the fact they had gone stale. Alex watched him with a look of muted disgust on his face as he sat. “Another movie, fellas?” Asked Reggie through a mouthful. Alex and Luke hummed their assent with mixed enthusiasm; Alex seemed keen enough, but Julie's song was on Luke's mind. His fingers found the chain on his neck without really thinking about it consciously, and he wound the chain around his index finger while Reggie flicked through the options, watching previews.

In an effort to act natural, none of them immediately got up and turned around when they heard the front door open again as Reggie watched the Stranger Things preview with interest. Alex was encouraging him to keep looking, since he wasn't one for thrillers. If Luke hadn't been patiently waiting for Julie to speak he would have agreed with Alex. Luke wasn't afraid of a little horror, but he was a binger when it came to shows and there was no way they could put that on and he wouldn't stay up until dawn watching it through.

Luke realised that Julie was being weirdly quiet as she walked up behind them, and hopped up on his knees to swivel in his seat to face her and ask what she wanted to watch. The grin on his face immediately fell when he saw someone who was not Julie, standing directly behind him with a can in her hand. Luke shouted in alarm, and Reggie jumped up in surprise while Alex leapt straight over the coffee table for cover. In a panic, Reggie did the stupidest thing possible: he threw the remote, hitting the stranger right between the eyes.

The stranger screamed and squeezed the can, and a burst of pepper spray went straight into Reggie's eyes. Now all four of them were screaming, and Reggie was writhing on the sofa in a way that didn't inspire good fortune. Luke’s stomach dropped as he realised what was happening.

"What the hell did you do!?" Alex spat, scrambling off the floor as he watched Reggie. Even Luke’s eyes were watering as the aerosol moved through the air, and he’d been standing several feet away.  
"I'm calling the police! Nobody moves!!" Cried the girl, digging her phone out of her pocket.   
Luke’s ears, ever keen, heard the shuffling of Julie’s slippers outside, long before she reached the door. "Flynn, no!" cried Julie, as she came stumbling back into the house, red-faced. Despite the desperate situation, Luke noticed that her eyes were puffy. She had been crying. In contrast, 'Flynn' looked relieved, up until Julie snatched the phone from her hand. "It's okay, they're with me!"  
"What do you mean?!" Flynn shouted, jabbing a finger at Luke like an accusation. "Why is Hallmark movie Kurt Cobain in your house?" Luke spared her a confused glance, but didn't have time to retort as he heard Reggie snarl.

Julie met his eye before they both rushed to Reggie lying on the sofa. He was writhing in the same way Luke had when he'd been shot, and he knew exactly what his friend was feeling at that moment. Control slipping like spilled mercury, your mind giving way to the animal inside. They called it frenzy, a transformation forced by anxiety, stress, anger, or pain. It was different to transforming voluntarily, in a few ways. All the humanity and self control of a voluntary transformation gave way to the instinct and adrenaline of the animal. Alex grasped his hand and tried to soothe him, but the pepper spray wasn't helping efforts.

"Julie, what's happening to him?" Flynn asked, her voice shaking. Reggie’s reaction to the pain was unexplainable as a simple allergy. The growls were guttural, deep, and undeniable.  
"Flynn, you know how we're best friends?" Julie asked, turning to the other girl. "Double Trouble?"  
Flynn tore her eyes from Reggie roaring on the sofa. "What has Double Trouble got to do with anything?"  
"If you go upstairs to my room, and give me fifteen minutes, I promise I will explain everything. And I don't mean personal everything, I mean like… world we live in everything. It's gonna blow your mind," Julie promised. Alex and Luke exchanged a glance.  
"I'm sorry, what?"  
"I mean it Flynn. Go upstairs, close the door, and I will tell you everything and make you a chocolate shake," Julie begged, gesturing to the stairs. Her breathing was heavy, and Reggie snarled again. Instinctively, Luke took a step towards the humans in the room, but he shied when Flynn glared.

After what felt like the longest stare down of his life, Flynn tore her scathing stare from him and flicked her gaze back to Julie. "Fine," she nodded quietly, looking appropriately shaken. She took a deep breath, then repeated herself. "Fine. Chocolate shake, fifteen minutes."  
Julie smiled wide and hugged her friend. "Julie, the unbelievable danger," Alex reminded her quietly, and Flynn shot him a confused look as she was shepherded upstairs.

Once Julie had Flynn out of the way, she shuffled back over to Reggie. “What do we do?” Luke gestured for her to step back a bit, and she met his eyes with a slight nod, stepping back from the sofa.  
“Normally try to calm him down, but we’re not going to be able to do that with that stuff in his eyes,” Alex told her calmly. “We’re going to have to go with plan B.”  
“What’s plan B?”  
Luke sighed, helping Alex hoist Reggie across their shoulders as he kicked and struggled. “We lock him up and hope he doesn’t break everything.” Julie looked alarmed as the two of them carried him past her in a hurry. “Get the door.”

Alex and Luke carried their packmate out the front door as he quickly deteriorated. His hair was growing all over, his feet elongating until his sneakers fell off his feet. He was clawing now, scratching Alex’s shirt until it tore, the smell of blood spiking Luke’s nose. Julie followed despite the boys’ protests for her to go back inside, opening the gate and preparing to open the barn doors for them. Unfortunately, they didn’t get that far, because Reggie slipped from their grasp, and was in his wolf form by the time he hit the ground.

Luke immediately backed up and pushed Julie behind him, his own heartbeat thundering as the stress of the situation reared its head. Reggie had no control over his actions at present, and there was a very squishy human present that Reggie’s frenzy brain would be locking onto the moment he got his bearings. Luke forced his breathing to steady; losing control could not be an option, even if he was going to have to face off with his best friend imminently. 

“Alex, distract him,” Luke barked, pushing Julie backwards up the path behind him. The tree that overhung the gate brushed his head, and he got an idea. “Julie, climb the tree.”  
“What?”  
Luke knelt and interlaced his fingers by the fence. “Get on the gate and climb up. It’s the only place he can’t get to you when he’s like this.”  
Julie nodded and stepped into his hands, and he boosted her up. Below them, Alex was slapping Reggie’s nose every time he fixed his gaze on the human target his wolf brain was honing in on. Julie climbed up into the lower branches, turning to face him below her. “What are you going to do!?” she asked, her eyebrows knit with worry.  
“Show him who’s boss,” Luke shrugged, trying to grin like it was casual, and not life-threatening. It was the truth, technically. He reached behind him and tugged his tank over his head, tossing it up to Julie. She caught it, but she didn’t look happy about it.   
“What do you want me to do with this?” She asked, then seemed to catch up. “Wait, why are you taking it off?!” He could tell by the look on her face that she knew why. “You can’t do that, what about your leg?”   
“Stay in the tree,” he told her. She threw him an unimpressed glare, but she had to break it to look away when he started to ditch the jeans. As far as staring contests went, he considered that a win for himself.

This was the first time he’d changed in weeks, and to say that he wasn’t itching to do it would be a lie. To a werewolf, staying in one form too long was like not getting out of bed for a week. His entire body ached for movement that no amount of jogging and push-ups could satiate. It was as though energy was building up in him, threatening to implode if he left it too long. If it wasn’t for the werewolf currently frenzying in a human family’s courtyard, he’d be relishing the excuse to change. Circumstances as they were, he wasted no time shifting.

When it was voluntary, it wasn’t as painful. His bones still popped and rearranged, and somewhere in the fog of the change he was aware of Julie making a sound of discomfort at the audible shifting of his flesh. There was no time to worry about what she thought of this, because Reggie had just sent Alex toppling and was now scrambling at the garden wall.

Luke levelled his gaze on Reggie, wishing he could just reason with him and tell him it was okay. Sometimes instinct betrayed them, and all Luke could do was pull the card he hated most. He felt the adrenaline spike as he faced off against another wolf, the animal side of him churning. One paw in front of the other, he kept Reggie’s eye, pacing him backwards towards the studio doors that Alex was sneaking across to open.

Luke could hear Julie’s breath as she crouched on the branch behind him, and he saw Reggie’s gaze flick up, reminding him of the stakes of getting his friend’s wolf side under control. Luke barked to regain Reggie’s attention, and that was when the roiling fury finally spilled over. With a snarl, the darker wolf lunged, and it began.


	6. Blood of the Covenant

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!!
> 
> Thank you so much for your kind comments, you give me life!! There's a big friendship focus in this chapter, but that's not to say it's without a ship tease or two. It's also the longest one yet.
> 
> Enjoy!

Julie had her eyes shut for what felt like forever. Initially it was out of dignity, after Luke began stripping in the middle of her yard. That turned to horror as the sound of his transformation caught her off guard, only able to describe it as the sound of pain itself. She heard snarling, but she kept her eyes screwed shut and her forehead pressed against the rough bark of the tree. A week ago it had been cute when she’d found them running around the yard, working off energy. It had been easy then to forget that they were not just big dogs, but rather the heralds of her entire world being upended. The fact she had embraced that illusion wasn’t their fault, but that didn’t stop her hands from shaking as reality was exhumed from where she’d tried to bury it, and she looked down at the courtyard to see Reggie’s wolf form with no scrap of his soul to be seen in its eyes, lunging straight for Luke.

At first she was terrified that she was about to see someone die. She’d seen two dogs at the park fighting once, but this was a thousand times worse. The boys were massive, and faster than any animal she had ever seen. Under normal circumstances, the fact that Reggie’s clothes were still hanging awkwardly off the bigger wolf would have been comical, but the tension in the air strangled all the humour out of the situation. Worse still, there was an intelligence to their battle that made it all the more uncanny. Not a fight between animals, but a battle for power. Luke was trying to back Reggie into the open barn doors. Reggie — if that could even be considered him at present — was fighting to overpower Luke. Reggie was taller, so it took her a few minutes of watching them tumble and bite at each other to realise that he was the one at the disadvantage. He was lankier, more clumsy from the unchecked rage, and she understood why they called it frenzy. In addition to having his wits about him, Luke was bigger overall. When he threw his weight it sent Reggie stumbling backwards, yet the taller wolf couldn’t return the manoeuvre half as easily. Aside from that, it was undeniable that there was an intangible energy between them. Julie couldn't even begin to place it, but it was a tension unlike any other. It was a heated conversation through glances, the sound of the engine echoing back at you as your car enters an empty tunnel late at night, or the smell of ozone in the air before a thunderstorm.

Reggie was the only one actively attacking, and Luke rebuffed his lunges with incredible patience. Unstoppable object met immovable force. Nobody could fault Julie for not being able to tear her eyes from a fight between two werewolves, least of all herself, and yet she managed as Alex caught her eye, frantically pulling the rug back off the hatch in the dim studio. While Luke calmly kept Reggie at bay, Alex was scrambling with the latch like someone’s life depended on it. Julie briefly hovered on that last thought, and decided she didn’t like it. 

Reggie heard the latch slam open, and his sleek black ears flicked on a reflex at the noise behind him. It was like a switch was flipped. As the standoff between the two wolves had been snapping back and forth like an angry tide, Luke had been slowly walking him backwards into the studio, and now Reggie saw this. His already erratic movements doubled, and his focus seemed to shift from challenging the other wolf to getting out -- a literal caged animal. Luke played goalie while Alex called out trying to direct his friend’s attention towards the hatch. Reggie’s heavy claws scraped at the old wood of the studio floor. They were trying and failing to contain the rampaging werewolf.

Her mom’s baby grand was right by where that wolf was currently fighting to escape any way he could. Rugs could be replaced, floorboards ripped up, but Reggie was a force to be reckoned with and there was only one of her mom’s piano. Julie hung Luke’s shirt on the branch above her head, her heart pumping as her adrenaline kicked in and the stupidest idea of her life sprung forth to her mind. She acted before she had time to think herself out of it.

Julie’s shoes scuffed the garden bed as she took off running, barely registering Alex’s shout of disbelief and alarm. She had seconds before Reggie’s muddled wolf brain caught up to the fact that prey was running right by him, so she made it count. Julie flew right past Reggie as he turned, and she felt the hotness of his breath as his jaws snapped at her, barely missing her arm. Claws slipped and scraped on the floorboards, wolves yelped as a thud sounded behind her, the sound rolling across the wooden floor. She dared not look back at what was happening, leaping over the open hatch to land behind where the lid sat open on the floor.

Alex opened his mouth, presumably to ask her what the hell she was doing, but she cut him off. “When he comes for me, help me lift this latch and knock him down the stairs!” Alex gaped at her for a second, but they both knew he didn’t have time to ask questions. Luke had been pinning Reggie to the floor by the couch, but he’d already broken free. Luke pursued too far behind to intervene in time. It was up to Julie and Alex now.

Reggie lunged. Julie and Alex gripped the latch lid and heaved, flipping it up. The force of his body hitting the latch was more than she could have possibly expected, and her shoulder stung as she just about buckled under the force of it. Luckily Alex was better prepared, and he threw his weight forward as Reggie fell down the stairwell with nothing to grip onto. Julie got to her knees and pushed the latch forward until it slammed shut and her palms were flat on the floor. A horrendous thud sent a vibration through her knees to her teeth as Reggie howled and threw himself upward against the hatch. Had the violence of the last few minutes not entirely rattled her, the sound would have probably sounded mournfully sad. Luckily he only tried to force his way out once. If the muffled sounds of destruction that followed were any indication, the frenzied wolf boy was now taking out his frustrations on the furniture downstairs. Marginally safer than throwing himself against the hatch, in any case.

Alex laughed nervously beside her, flicking the latch to lock the lid closed. Julie huffed a breath of relief and lifted her head, jolting in surprise when she nearly headbutted a wet canine nose in front of her face, hot breath blowing her loose curls out of her eyes. She sat back on her calves, staying still as Luke sniffed at her. Sitting right in front of him, she realised just how  _ big _ werewolves actually were. Kneeling like they were doing, neither Julie nor Alex cleared Luke’s shoulder height. Reggie had been even taller still, which seemed impossible. His fur was warm brown, and shaggy like his hair. Darker patches surrounded his nose, paws, ears and the tip of his tai. A tiny white stripe of fur ran on his forehead between his eyes, not noticeable before when she’d been up in the tree. His eyes were a striking array of hazel that almost reflected the dim light like a cat’s would, and there was a timeless moment where she couldn’t tear her own gaze away. Luckily she didn’t have to, because he did it first, sniffing at her.   


Luke was nudging at her elbow, and Alex batted his nose away. “Stop it dude, you’re gonna freak her out,” he hissed at Luke, before glancing sidelong at Julie. “I’m sorry about him. He’s just making sure Reggie didn’t bite you.”  
“I’m not freaked out,” Julie defended, too quickly. “Okay, well I am freaked out. But not because of this,” she laughed awkwardly. In comparison to the fighting before, it was weirdly peaceful to be quietly regarded in the dark studio. Tentatively, she raised a shaky hand. “May I?”  
Luke blinked slowly, then dipped his head to nudge his forehead onto her palm, right where that tiny bolt of white was. Her gut did a somersault, the survival instinct in the back of her brain protesting wildly against the fact that she was touching an apex predator. Alex rolled his eyes beside her. “You’d think he was an actual dog.”  
“It’s okay. Reggie didn’t bite me, I promise,” she reassured them. “I hope he’s okay down there.”   
“He’s not himself, but he’ll cool off by morning. Poor guy. We’ve all been there…” Alex seemed to drift off for a moment, glancing away. “You’re lucky, what you did was pretty reckless. If he’d have bitten you…” Alex began carefully.    
“He didn’t,” Julie reiterated. “He was tearing up my mom’s studio. There’s important stuff in here. I couldn't let him take it out on… any of it.” Her lashes fluttered as she glanced at the piano. Losing it after only just finding her mom’s last gift to her would have been too much to bear.   
“Well,” Alex said quietly, following her gaze to the piano. “I think you’re pretty brave, for what it’s worth.”

Julie was going to thank him as she ran her hands along Luke’s fur, but let out a hum of surprise as she felt a strange texture on his neck. Her fingers came away with a small smear of blood -- nothing serious, but enough to seep into his fur. She assumed it had happened when they had wrestled on the floor when she ran in. Julie leaned to the side to get a better look, but this seemed to be the point where Luke shied from her attention and he stood, pacing toward Alex. Luke sniffed at Alex, almost like they were having a nonverbal conversation, then he trotted out of the studio and into the courtyard out of sight. She was glad that they at least had each other in all this; she didn’t know what she would do if she had to navigate lycanthropy alone.

That thought tickled something in the back of her mind, and she looked at the courtyard where Luke had disappeared. “So are you three… like a pack or something? How does this work?”   
Alex rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s the loaded question to end all loaded questions. I guess we’re a pack… not in the traditional sense. Or at least we try not to be, but some things are instinctual. We can’t help it.”  
“Like what, frenzy or whatever you call it?” Julie leaned against the couch.  
“Among other things,” Alex sighed. “We were friends first, before… you know. There’s a lot of things about this we didn’t ask for, hierarchy being one of them. We can deny it all we like, but there will always be some part of the wolf that rules us.”  
Julie digested his words carefully. “Hierarchy,” she repeated, and glanced out the door again. It was like a piece of a puzzle had just clicked into place. Luke had been the one to face off against the frenzied Reggie, even though it would have been less risky with his injury to allow Alex to do the transforming.   
As if sensing that she’d made the connection, Alex snorted. “We tell him we let him lead the pack to make up for being the shortest.” Julie smirked back at him, although she could tell from his tone that height was far from the only reason.  
“You don’t feel weird about it? Having someone in charge?”   
“Nah. Outside of emergencies like this one, it’s name only,” Alex shrugged. “Wolves or not, we’re a pack. Luke would never use his power against us. It’s not who he is.” His gaze turned nostalgic, almost sad. “For a long time now, all we’ve had is each other.”  
Julie’s heartstrings tied themselves in knots, and the reassurance that they didn’t only have each other anymore was sitting on her tongue. It was crazy given how long she’d realistically known them, but sometimes you just know. It had been that way with Flynn. The moment the two of them met, they’d known they had something unbreakable.

It was this thought that finally connected the dots in Julie’s mind, and all thoughts of her unspoken heartfelt comment were scattered to the wind. Her own packmate was still upstairs, waiting on an explanation. “Flynn!” Julie gasped, jumping into action. Alex swore under his breath, clearly having also forgotten. They rushed out of the studio, and it was a very lucky thing that their conversation about packs had taken up enough time to allow Luke to make himself presentable. He was currently trying to reach his shirt in the tree, but she’d needed a boost to get up there in the first place and had hung it high. For the briefest of moments, she allowed herself to be embarrassed that she had been touching that very shirtless boy’s face two minutes ago. Instead of dwelling on this thought like she should have however, her brain instead decided to replay the moment earlier still, when he’d shoved her behind him as Reggie had reeled on her. Her face felt very hot all of a sudden, and she started up the garden path to the gate before her face betrayed her to either of them.

“Upstairs, let’s go. I need you two.”  
“You’re just going to tell her?” Alex asked incredulously, following her strides. Luke followed along behind them, abandoning his shirt and hopping to slip his vans back on. “Is that safe?”   
Julie smiled softly, not a doubt in her heart. “Me and her… we’re like the three of you.”   
Alex tipped his head in understanding. “Except there’s only two of you.”  
Unbidden, a pang of a feeling Julie had thought was long buried reared its ugly head. A tiny voice in the back of her mind, whispering that there used to be three. But that was old news now, and they had a more important task ahead. “Yeah. If we can convince her, she’s an ally until the end. I promise.”   
“I could just transform again,” Luke volunteered, way too cheery.   
Julie looked over her shoulder at him, fixing him with a stern glare. “Do not remove your clothes again.”   
Luke snorted, throwing his hands up to concede. “Alright boss.”

They climbed the stairs to Julie’s room, where the string lights were on and the door was slightly ajar. Julie signalled for the boys to hang back and nudged her door open, quickly kicking some laundry behind it before Luke or Alex saw. At first she didn’t see Flynn, but quickly spotted her curled up on the window seat, staring at the window… that overlooked the courtyard. Julie swore under her breath, and Flynn looked at her with an unreadable expression. Not the fear she was expecting, though. Something else entirely.   
  
“Flynn?” Julie asked, crossing the room to sit on the edge of her bed, facing her friend. “Did you see?”   
Flynn’s lip quivered in an uncharacteristic display of vulnerability. Julie had never seen her look so… small. “I saw.” She drew a shaky breath. “I maced a werewolf.”   
Julie laughed, unable to help herself. “Yeah you did. You’re not….” Julie gestured vaguely. “I don’t know, angry? Afraid? Calling animal control?” she asked, scoffing dryly without really feeling it. Her friend met her gaze, and Julie’s heart twisted. “Flynn, what is it?” Why wasn’t she freaking out about werewolves existing like Julie thought she would have?   
“I have to tell you something,” Flynn whispered. “But I’m afraid you’re gonna be mad at me for keeping it a secret.”  
“Whatever it is, I won’t be mad. Promise,” Julie replied softly.

Flynn shifted in her seat, turning to face Julie and pushing her hair away from her face. “Do you remember when we were thirteen and your mom taught you how to shave your legs and you were super duper mega excited to show me how because I said my mom wouldn’t let me?”   
Julie blinked, confused, and also a little embarrassed that Flynn was telling stories about being thirteen while they boys were in earshot. “Yeah, i guess? You got sick and went home, what about it?”  
“And you know how I refuse to go to the beach because I hate sand so much?”  
“So?”   
“And you know how I have that skin condition which means I can’t go in chlorine pools and I have a whole doctor’s note and everything?” Flynn went on, wringing her hands together.  
Julie huffed, failing to see what Flynn’s skin condition had to do with werewolves or a secret. “Where are you going with this?”

But just as quickly as she said it, the connection formed in Julie’s mind. She’d been so caught up on werewolves, it took her a moment to see what was happening. Flynn wasn’t shocked that werewolves existed because it wasn’t a life changing revelation for her like it had been for Julie. “Flynn,” Julie repeated. “What are you saying?” She knew what Flynn was saying, but she needed to hear it.  
It was Alex who finally broke the silence, the penny dropping almost audibly. “Are you kidding me? We could have been  _ mermaids _ !?” He’d clearly been listening in on the entire conversation.  
“Yeah,” Luke agreed quietly, as Flynn and Julie stared at each other. “Talk about drawing the short straw.”  
Julie was reeling, but it couldn’t have been half of what Flynn was feeling. So she stood, lunged to close the space between herself and her best friend, and wrapped her in a hug. “Thank you for telling me,” Julie whispered. “Your secret’s safe with me. I’m not mad.”   
Flynn sucked in a shaky breath of relief, almost as though she was re-inhaling her soul after it left her body. “Ditto,” she laughed, then froze and pulled away slightly with a look of displeasure on her face. “Girl you smell like a dog though, hug me after you take a shower.” Julie blushed again, without really being able to pinpoint why.

“Hey Julie?” called Luke, raising his hand slightly from where he hovered in the doorway. Now that she had a moment to look at him face on with the hall light on him, she saw he had a shallow long graze on his neck. “Can we order pizza?”   
“It’s like midnight,” Julie protested, the adrenaline wearing off and giving way to fatigue.    
“I’m hungry,” he countered. “From all the cool stuff I just did, dunno if you saw or--”   
“Too much,” Alex whispered, trying not to smirk.   
“Reggie would love to wake up to some slices in the morning, I bet it would make him feel better,” Luke tried. Julie sighed, softening and nodding her consent.   
“I want anchovies,” Flynn chimed in, with the beginnings of her old grin creeping back.    
Alex squinted at this, tilting his head critically. “Isn’t that kind of like cannibalism?”   
“Do I look like an anchovy to you, Fido?”   


Julie met Luke’s gaze across the room as she pulled out her phone to order the pizza, and they shared a smile as their friends argued. When the pizza finally showed up, Luke barely ate one slice before helping her pack leftovers into the fridge to give to Reggie in the morning, and Julie went to bed wondering whether Luke had actually wanted pizza at all, or if he was just thinking of his friend all alone in that basement.


	7. Pack Tactics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pure fluff chapter here feat. wholesome Ray. I know I tagged dark themes but I can't not address the fact that these boys are three big ol' puppies come on. Or maybe i'm lulling you into a false sense of security with all the fluff just to ruin all their lives later >:) 
> 
> (I just like a good balance ok)
> 
> As usual, your feedback gives me life and I love you all. Glad to see you liked the Flynn surprise, we'll definitely go into more detail with her soon, and maybe meet a couple familiar faces? Thank you so much for reading and following along, I treasure you!

Luke woke to the sun in his eyes and Alex's foot in his face. Strangely enough, only one of those things was particularly unusual. He pushed Alex's foot away from him and lifted his head, taking a few seconds to absorb his surroundings and remember why he was asleep on the floor in the Molinas' den. 

Reggie was hopefully well and truly sleeping off his ordeal. Poor guy. Just as Luke remembered the pizza, he heard a rustle from the kitchen, as though the food was calling to him. 

Luke began the careful process of untangling himself from the torpedo of blankets he had managed to spin himself into in the night. Alex was face down and most likely drooling, having fallen off the sofa at some point to land his foot in Luke's face. They had a tendency to gravitate to each other in their sleep. Luke chalked it up to the pack instinct, but the thought of Reggie locked downstairs only made him sadder this way. 

He tiptoed into the kitchen. There was a chance it would be Flynn in the kitchen, but he found exactly who he had expected. Julie was already dressed, despite the late hour they'd finally passed out. She was pouring juice, and threw him a slow smile when he walked in, her nose scrunching up. He was starting to like it when she did that.   
"You're up early," she commented with an airy tone.  
"Not on purpose," he defended, rubbing his eye.   
"Mmhm. My dad's gonna be home soon, we need to clean all this up. He can't know what happened," she asserted, and he nodded slowly. "He's been very lenient, I'm pretty sure he knows I'm hanging out with you guys. If he finds out we had an incident, he could pull the plug."  
"I know," Luke replied slowly. In his heart he wanted to object; what would Ray do about it? Tell Julie she couldn't go to the basement anymore? Lock them in? Kick them out? But Ray had been so accommodating and patient. He'd saved their lives. And he was actually a decent, understanding parent. Luke didn't want to cause him pain. "I'm sorry for all this."  
"Not your fault," Julie said into her orange juice before taking a sip. She glanced over the top of the glass at him, and he saw a smile in her eyes. 

"What?" Luke asked, leaning back against the counter. "You got somethin' to say Molina?"  
"No," she replied, although it wasn't convincing in the slightest. She was fighting a smirk. "How's your neck?"  
He'd nearly forgotten until she mentioned it. He touched it, remembering the way Julie's fingers had brushed his neck last night. That had been the first time a human had ever gotten so close, and he'd shied away. "Oh. Fine, I guess. How's your fish friend?"  
"Sleeping," she replied sternly. "Don't call her that, especially to her face."  
"Yeah, she'd probably mace me," he laughed, and when she joined in he had to push away the giddy feeling in his gut.

Still chuckling to herself, Julie put her glass down and went to the fridge, pulling out the leftover pizza. He watched her turn on the oven to reheat it, drumming her nails under her lip. The way she held her fingers was such a tell of her being a pianist, he was almost shocked he hadn't seen it before. The subject jumped up his throat and he had to stamp it down, not wanting to bring it up and say the wrong thing. Maybe he could convince her to talk about it naturally.

“So i’ve been pretty bored down there, I’m kinda runnin’ outta pages in my notebook,” he offered carefully, tapping the tip of his shoe on the floor as he leaned on the counter.    
Julie bit. “Notebook?”   
“I write lyrics a lot when i’m bored,” he shrugged, lacing his fingers together and stretching his arms out in front of him. Act casual, Patterson.   
She looked at him sidelong, the morning light reflected starkly in her dark eyes. “Right. For the band.” There was an unreadable expression on her face, and she stood up carefully. “You guys must miss playing.”   
“Well, not for long though right? When this all blows over we can really get out there, come back stronger than ever.” It was a belief he was clinging to. He had to.   
“What if it doesn’t blow over?” Julie asked quietly, fingernails picking at the corner of the counter.    
He took in a breath quietly. It had to blow over. But he did what he always did and put his most confident foot forward. “Then we’ll go online. Can’t catch us if we’re not even there, right?” This conversation was not the tactical masterpiece he had hoped it would be when he started it.   


Julie smiled weakly, then grabbed the pizza box and threw it in the oven. “I’ll ask my dad about getting you a new notebook while we’re out. Don’t want you chewing the furniture out of boredom,” she teased, and he let his jaw drop.   
“Oh, we’re making fun of each other now? We’ve reached that level?” he asked, following her as she walked out of the kitchen and towards the stairs.   
She hopped up to the first step and leaned over the railing, just so she could loom over him for once. She was scrunching her nose with a grin, and she definitely retorted with some kind of comeback, but Luke didn’t absorb a word she said. 

She disappeared up the stairs and he plodded back to the den, kicking Alex gently in the leg. “Dude, get up. We gotta clean the house,” Luke sighed, the fatigue he had pushed aside to talk to Julie suddenly coming flooding back the minute he realised they had chores to do. Alex seemed to feel the same way, because it took him two more nudges to actually open his eyes.   
“Reggie?” He mumbled, lifting his head to look around. 

Luke sighed, softening. It was unusual of late to wake up with someone absent. “He’s still downstairs, and we gotta sort out this house before Julie gets in trouble.”   
Alex lifted his head to squint at Luke, sighing. “Yeah, if he comes home and finds your shirt in the tree there will be all sorts of uncomfortable questions.” Luke patted his stomach only for his hand to find bare flesh, and nodded in muted acceptance to nobody in particular.

They cleaned up the remainder of the snacks, Alex taking washup on the dishes and Luke straightening out the den. He contemplated vacuuming just to be extra thorough, but he didn’t even know where the vacuum was. Besides, he justified to himself, if the house was too clean it would be even more suspicious.  Plus, he just hated the sound of the damn things.   
  
“Whoa, you guys really jump to it huh,” called a voice from the stairwell, and Luke looked up to see Flynn on the steps.    
“Look out, she’s armed,” Alex called from the kitchen, and Luke heard Julie from the floor above snort loudly.   
Flynn whirled to glare at Alex on the other side of the railing. “You’re damn right I am,” she warned, although their ears were sharp. They could hear a smirk in someone’s voice even when it wasn’t visible. Luke rolled his eyes and finished folding the throw blankets, then circled around to meet Alex in the kitchen. Julie skipped down the stairs and Flynn waited for her to catch up before she followed.    
  
“Should we give you guys a minute to talk to him?” Julie asked, glancing at the oven.    
Alex glanced at Luke, but he was the one who was best with this stuff. He had the floor. “I think it’s best if we just treat it like a normal day. Take some pizzas down there, maybe pump some tunes. This stuff happens sometimes, we shouldn’t treat it like the end of the world or he’ll feel worse.”   
“This happens to you often?” Flynn asked, scrunching up her nose. Not the way Julie did it before, but more in an uncomfortable way.    
“Only when people walk in without knocking and mace us,” Luke mumbled, and Julie glared. Flynn only snorted though, and he could tell she wasn’t mad.   
“Or when we get really angry.” Alex answered seriously. “When Luke first--”  
Luke tensed. “Alex,” he warned. “Reggie’s probably awake by now.” The tale of his first frenzy wasn't a happy one, and he didn't want it aired out. It was so bad he hadn't been home since, and it had been over two years.

They marched like a procession down the path to the studio. Julie stopped to grab a broom and help Luke get his shirt down. The studio was empty, obviously, the rug still pulled back. Alex flicked the latch and lifted the door, waving the pizza box in the stairwell. “Breakfast’s up when you are, big boy,” he sing-songed before he let the door close and put the pizza aside. Julie glanced at Luke, confused, but Alex just walked over and started flicking through the CDs under the loft. Luke signalled for them to sit down. Reggie would come up of his own volition sooner or later.   
  
“I haven’t been down here in ages,” Flynn was saying, looking up at the chairs suspended from the ceiling. “Everything’s so dusty.”   
“Yeah, well, I was in the middle of starting cleanup when Dad brought home a few strays,” Julie replied, throwing a meaningful glance at Luke.    
“You were down here before?” Flynn whispered, sounding thrilled. Hopeful. Maybe they didn’t realise how good his and Alex’s hearing was, so he turned away and tried not to listen. Luke wasn’t the most intuitive person on the planet, but even he could tell there was something going on with Julie’s music and her mom. When she played that song the night before, he’d heard something in her voice. It was significant. Important. 

His eyes fell on the old six string in the corner. It was almost visibly out of tune, and covered in dust, but an idea sprung to mind. What better way to coax Reggie back to civilization than that guitar? He jogged over, swinging his legs over the arms of the sofa and the armchair, and picked the thing up. He used his shirt to wipe at the dust, ignoring the look of disgust Alex threw him, and started plucking at the strings to find they were out of tune. WAY out. Trying to tune the strings to each other was pretty fruitless when it was this bad.

"Alright, this is painful," Julie sighed, crossing to the baby grand. "For all our ears. Give me a note."  
Luke met her eyes across the room and grinned his gratitude. He almost forgot to answer. "Uh. E." Julie found the note and hit it, tapping the pedal to let it ring. Luke tuned the lowest string to her note, tweaking it while she tapped the note a few more times. Finally he was satisfied, and tuned the rest of the strings to the fifth fret from there. Alex had clearly noticed what he was doing and bounded over, nearly toppling over the side of the couch in his rush to get on it.  
"What're they doing?" Flynn was asking Julie. "If they start with Duran Duran I'm leaving this studio." Luke snorted as he gave the strings one last test to ensure he was satisfied. And as he expected, even the sound of the tuning had drawn Reggie out from downstairs. He lifted the hatch, his eyes narrowing on Flynn before moving to the pizza. Alex saw him and cheered, and Julie waved to him.  
"Everything’s fine, so get up here dude," Luke told him, testing a strum. "We're gonna get rusty if we're not careful."

Reggie opened his mouth to say something, but decided against it in the end. He crawled out looking sore and disheveled, and Luke felt a pang of guilt at the long red welts on Reggie's arm, but they knew better than to hold it against each other or themselves. His friend went to the pizza box and inhaled for a few seconds, a smile creeping onto his face.

"Oh pizza. It's been too long, mon cherie," he sighed, picking up a slice and taking a moment to admire it before consuming it with alarming speed.  
"I think you're supposed to chew that," Julie called, folding her arms on top of the baby grand and resting her chin on top of them. Luke started to strum, trying not to stare at Reggie to gauge how awkward he felt. He seemed enraptured by the pizza, which was a good sign. He started running through the chords of one of their songs, trying to keep it fresh in his head. He always used to idly play like this, and on more than one occasion it ended up morphing into something entirely different and becoming a song of its own. If he had his notebook he’d write something about a room full of people trying to keep each other above water. There was an air in the studio he hadn’t fully appreciated before, like every surface echoed inspiration back at him. He thought about Julie’s mom spending hours there, writing a song for her daughter.

Another reason he didn’t want to directly ask Julie about her song, as much as he ached to. Neither Ray nor Julie had gone into specifics, but while the melody was beautiful and the lyrics were hopeful, it seemed like something that was between Julie and her mom only. He had a song like that too, hidden somewhere in the pages of his most tattered notebook. 

Flynn and Julie were on the piano bench facing the plants behind them, finally talking about the specifics of the mermaid situation. Luke tried not to eavesdrop, but Alex’s knee drumming and Reggie’s, frankly, disturbing interactions with the pizza weren’t providing the best distraction.    
“Have to wait until I'm dry,” Flynn complained. “Do you have any idea how long that takes if I get my hair wet?”   
“But what about showers?”   
“Baths only. If I took a shower I'd fall over like one of those old white ladies in the infomercials,” Flynn scoffed, and they both laughed. 

Alex humming distracted him finally, and he turned to see him pointing at the guitar and humming a tune. “What’s that? It’s on the tip of my tongue, those two chords you just played.”   
Luke raised a brow and tried to repeat them from memory, although he’d just been idly walking through fret positioning. Now that Alex mentioned it, it was something. Alex was humming as though trying to catch the words in his head. Just as Luke placed the tune Alex was trying to sing, Reggie threw his hands up.   
“Oh you guys come on,” Reggie sighed, dropping his slice and sliding onto the arm of the chair next to him. He raised his brow and Luke turned to him expectantly. He already knew what it was, but they were here to cheer Reggie up, and nothing cheered Reggie up more than classic rock and being right about something. “Are you gonna make me?”   
“Absolutely,” Luke winked, and Reggie sighed.   
  
Reggie broke out into his favourite Bryan Adams classic with all the energy of a kid at Christmas, and Luke shared a glance with Alex. They knew he was okay. Alex tapped his knees to the beat and Luke eventually joined in for the chorus. Flynn and Julie had turned on the bench to watch, giggling at the ridiculous energy. Luke knew what they were like when they jammed, he’d learned to embrace it. Flynn flipped up the lid on the piano and began to pluck the notes for the lead riff, nudging Julie. She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but by the second chorus she was singing along, an octave above. Alex had graduated from his knees and had taken to slamming his palms on the table in front of him, laughing as he watched Reggie overanimate. Luke caught Julie’s eye just before she threw her head back and harmonised ‘now or never’ and was glad for the fact that everyone was belting it out and Flynn was helping with the melody, because his fingers slipped on the next chord in a discordant twang that he managed to mute before it was too obvious over all the noise. He picked it up again almost immediately and tried to pretend he didn’t notice the quizzical stare and raised eyebrows he got from Reggie.

They were right in the middle of the outro when the studio door creaked open. Luke didn’t notice at first, but Julie stopped singing and Flynn lost time completely with the piano. Ray was poking his head through the barn doors, and for a moment Luke was terrified he’d be mad. But he was smiling at Julie in a way he’d never seen anyone smile at their kid. Not that he had the best pool of examples on that front, he reminded himself. She grinned back, mouthing ‘Hi Papi’ to him. He nodded and she kept singing with Reggie and Luke until they ran out of song.    
  
“Boys. Julie,” He greeted with a smile when the silence finally fell. Then he raised a brow. “I see Flynn is also here,” he added quizzically.   
‘Later,’ Julie was mouthing now.  
“Were we too loud?” Alex asked carefully, wringing his hands as if only just realising he had been belting the shit out of the coffee table moments before.  
“No such thing as far as I'm concerned,” Ray was saying, meeting Julie’s eye. Luke thought his eyes looked kinda wet, but it was hard to tell from so far away. “Listen, I've got a few hours before I have to get Carlos. You boys have been wearing the same two outfits for a couple weeks,” he started, and for a second Luke was irrationally terrified he’d be kicked out. Wouldn’t be the first time. “I can take you to wherever you were staying to grab some stuff.”   
“Oh my god, yes please. Yes,” Alex was practically begging despite having already been offered.    
Luke sighed, playing it up for the drama. “Yes. It feels like I've been wearing the same jeans since like, 1995,” he groaned.  
“I can get my cowboy boots!” Reggie grinned, jumping up and shaking Alex by the shoulder.  
“You’ll have to be quick and you can’t tell anyone where you’ve been,” he warned, but he was smiling as the boys celebrated their small but significant win. Luke might have been biased, but he needed this. “I’ll meet you in the car in ten.”

Luke stood, carefully placing the guitar where he’d found it. When he turned around, Julie was introducing Reggie to Flynn, properly. Before Luke had a chance to concentrate on whatever awkward interaction Reginald was about to generate, she diverted to him and Alex, clasping her hands together. “I know we don’t have the cool equipment you’re used to down here, but if you guys ever get bored of movies… that was fun.”   


Yeah, it was. She and Flynn left to let the boys meet her dad, and Luke realised the car couldn’t possibly fit all of them anyway. On second thought though, it was probably best Julie didn’t see the shithole the three of them had been holed up in before they came to the Molinas’ house. Kinda depressing that the basement had been a notable trade-up.    
  
Luke threw on his hoodie and collected Reggie from the pizza box before he could get lost in it again. Alex was tapping his legs as he walked, and the guilt crept back. Alex’s drum set was probably shoved in some dusty corner of the Orpheum where they couldn’t risk getting it back, so he was left to tap on tables while Reggie and Luke had one of their guitars each with them. It sucked. Alex was never one to complain about what he didn’t have, but Luke was cut enough for the both of them.    
  
It was almost enough for him to consider doing something stupid. Almost.


	8. Ghosts of the Past

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU FOR 200 KUDOS!!!! You're the best readers a girl could ask for <3 I really mean it you guys, every time I read your comments I grin like an idiot. 
> 
> Speaking of comments, I see a couple of you picked up on my very not subtle foreshadowing at the end of that last one ;) I shall hold my tongue and let you see for yourselves exactly how that one pans out. 
> 
> CW for this chapter: Graphic depictions of violence, depressive themes, references to alcohol use.

After a few weeks one might have expected the apartment to look worse, but truthfully it was already at rock bottom before they fell off the face of the earth. When Alex walked in he had to nudge Luke's beanbag out of the doorway, knocking over a glass that had been precariously perched on the table beside it. The glass rolled down the beanbag and across the floor, but none of them paid much mind to it as they took in their living space. Mismatched furniture found on the curb, a stereo that sounded like a tin can, dust on every surface. The wallpaper was peeling and you couldn't walk barefoot because the floorboards were splintering. The kitchen countertop was chipped at the edges and there was a single minifridge that was so shitty it would have spoiler all the food in it, if there were any in there at all.

"One thing has changed," Alex corrected himself aloud as his eyes trained on the ceiling. "Mould spot grew."  
"Great," Luke muttered, nudging past them to get into the apartment. He’d been in one of his moods all day, the same mood he was always in when he was reminded of reality after an emotional vacation. Most times that was a gig, sometimes a party, but most recently he’d added to that roster; being hidden away from murderers by a very kind man and having endless movie nights with his cute daughter. You know, if you were into that kind of thing. Luke was nothing if not an open book. Alex watched him as he flung the door open to their room and beelined for the pair of trash bags that was his wardrobe, hauling them over his shoulders. He marched out and put them in the hall, then went to the corner where they kept a desk that was actually halfway decent, and began collecting all his songwriting stuff. Reggie was carefully folding his favourite jacket and setting it into a duffel bag. Alex followed him into their room.

Three mattresses littered the floor haphazardly, and there was a single collapsible wardrobe for the stuff they cared to actually hang. For Alex that was most things, for Reggie it was a couple of special items, and Luke… well the trash bag spoke for itself. At least it made packing easy. Alex considered the wardrobe for a moment. He could pack his stuff carefully, but Ray had an SUV that had more than enough room for him to just zip the flimsy thing up and throw it in. Couldn't hurt to take a page from Luke's book for once, right?

Reggie snorted at him as he started to drag the wardrobe full of clothes out the door, awkwardly manoeuvring around the entryway. As he did, he spotted Luke staring at a pocket knife he kept in the desk drawer. When he heard Alex passing through, he quickly shoved it in his pocket. He was as bad as ever at hiding the fact he kept it. Alex dragged his awkward hunk of furniture down the stairs and tried not to think about the night he'd seen Luke use it, but once the memory wormed its way into his mind it was hard to shake.

_ It was misting rain, well after midnight, and they were walking home from a party in the guts of suburban LA. Luke was walking ahead of him, hands shoved in his pockets, Bobby trailed behind, and Reggie was way ahead taking his frustrations out on any cans that dared lie in his path. They were all feeling pretty beat up. They hadn't had a gig in two weeks, and Luke's parents were getting on his case way worse than usual. Reggie was home even less than Luke was, and Alex had been sleeping on his sister's couch for the last six months, but even that was pushing it. Her and her husband were going to have a baby soon, and though she would never say it, his welcome was wearing thin. He didn't want to make her say it. Without any gigs or money, it felt like moving out was a distant prospect financially, even if they managed to find someone shady enough to lease to three sixteen year old kids.  _

_ Alex hadn't noticed right away that Reggie wasn't with him. It was only the creak of the rusty chains on the swings that alerted him and Luke that their friend had strayed from the street lights and into the park to their right. He was winding the chain and letting it go so he spun in place. _

_ "Dude," Luke groaned. "I'm tired, can we please just go home?"  
_ _ "Here's as good a home as any," Reggie sighed, spinning himself again. That seemed to quickly be evolving into their motto of late. Alex shared a look with Bobby as Luke groaned and trudged into the park, conceding defeat to Reggie's whims. This area was as sketchy as sketchy got, but they were all a little under the effects and too tired to fight it. _

_ The air was cold, but not so cold that they couldn't bear to spend a few minutes in the dark. Bobby was throwing pieces of bark idly into the darkness. The neighbourhood wasn't nice enough to have lit parks, so they were relying on the limited moonlight from behind the cloud cover. Alex was staring at the sky, and he didn't notice right away that there were more sets of footsteps than there should have been. _

_ "Midnight stroll, boys?" An unfamiliar voice asked. There were two men and a woman, and though it was dark, Alex could tell they were older. In their late twenties, maybe.   
_ _ "What's it to you?" Luke asked defensively, guarded from his tone to his posture.   
_ _ "Depends. How much money you got, kiddo?" mocked the second man, strolling over to spit his gum out into the bin next to him. Well, at least he wasn't a litterbug.  
_ _ "Oh, I have some!" Reggie laughed, shoving his hand into his pocket and producing his middle finger.  _

_ The first dude was sauntering in a way Alex didn't like at all. He seemed almost like an animal the way he circled his prey. "Reggie," Alex warned, but Reggie didn't move. Luke was standing by, fists clenched.  
_ _ "Wanna check again?" Asked the first man. The woman was quietly trying to convince him to leave it, but he was ignoring her.  
_ _ Reggie, the idiot, shrugged and replied "No thanks, I'm good," with the most shit-eating grin on planet earth. _

_ The guy in front of Reggie lifted his elbow and twisted, ready to punch. Luke stepped in faster than Alex thought possible in his current state, making a sickening crunch on the man's jaw before he had the chance to attack. Luke followed up with a hard kick to the gut that Alex almost felt himself. Bobby tried to throw a stick at their assailant, but hit the woman in the eye instead. She cried out, and Alex ran over to try and de-escalate the situation. The man who was punched tried to go for Luke again, but seemed overcome by something. A seizure maybe? He was doubled over and grunting, and Alex was trying to pull Luke away. "You've done enough dude, let's just go." _

_ The woman and the second man were frantically leaning over their friend, but he roared this time, shoving them away. They shared a look and almost immediately began to run away at a desperate sprint, disappearing into the darkness. A reaction Alex should have taken for the massive red flag visible from orbit that it was, but in the moment he had been more worried about his friends.  _

_ "We need to leave," Alex insisted as the man keeled over on the ground.   
_ _ "Maybe he needs an ambulance," Bobby tried, backing up towards the trunk of a tree behind him. "Luke just fireman kicked his internal organs!"  
_ _ "Asshole deserved it," Luke spat, straining against the hand Reggie was using to push him away from the situation.  
_ _ "I mean it you guys," Alex was insisting, watching the man writhe in on himself in a way that wasn't natural. "This dude is dangerous." _

_ The snarling was starting to become something unnatural. Now that Alex was up close, he could see the guy was WAY more hairy than he had thought from a dozen paces away. Bobby threw another stick, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet. "You guys, somethin’ is seriously up with--" _

_ That was all he got out before the man jumped at Reggie, knocking him to the ground. Alex and Luke immediately jumped to his aid, and it took Alex a few seconds to realise that it wasn't a man they were pulling off Reggie, but the biggest dog he'd ever seen. Reggie had flung up an arm to stop it from biting his face, but the creature was tearing through his leather jacket like a hot knife through butter. Spit and blood was flying everywhere. Bobby had scrambled into the tree and was screaming, scrambling for his phone, but in his rush to call for help he fumbled it. His fingers were slick with water from the rain, and it disappeared into the unkempt grass around the base of the tree with a wet rustle. Alex panicked, and stepped back to deliver a kick to the dog's snout. It let go of Reggie's bloodied arm, and turned on Alex. _

_ Now that its yellow eyes were trained on him, Alex could see it wasn't a dog. No dog on earth looked like this, and what struck him most was the unnatural intelligence in its eyes. This was a wolf, but at the same time… it wasn't. He lifted his leg to kick it again, knowing somehow that running would do him no good. But the wolf was ready this time, and latched onto his calf, tearing his jeans. Maybe it was the adrenaline, but he didn't feel pain at first. Just the sensation of teeth puncturing his flesh, tearing at his skin and muscle. He toppled backwards and landed on his back, and his vision swam as all the air was knocked from his lungs.  _

_ Luke was on it then, and in the blur of the moment Alex lost track of where Luke’s silhouette ended and the wolf’s began. He threw his entire weight on the massive animal, wrenching it from Alex’s leg. He felt it then, probably because he knew he was supposed to. As Luke and the wolf tripped over his prone form, Alex curled onto his side, scrambling toward Reggie. He was crying and breathing fast, holding his arm to his chest. Alex could feel that same pain seeping through his own blood like venom, and he heard Luke shout in alarm. He was kicking at the wolf’s chest, trying to push it off him as its foaming maw snapped at his face. Bobby was in the tree, yelling something Alex couldn’t understand. Luke gave a great heave with both feet, flinging the wolf a few paces back, and for the first time Alex appreciated how strong Luke actually was when it came to it. Thinking about the payoffs of Luke being an angst lifter was not the thought train Alex ever thought he would arrive at in an emergency, but the man just kicked a wild animal. Man. He wasn’t sure which it was. What he did know was that his leg was burning in a way he was pretty sure wounds weren’t supposed to. Was this rabies? _

_ The wolf recovered in what felt like minutes, but it must have been only seconds. Luke was reaching into his jacket pocket, but the wolf was faster, diving at him before he could bring his arm up. It latched onto his shoulder, and Alex heard a dull thud as its jaws snapped down on Luke’s flesh. It was the sound of tooth hitting bone. Reggie cried out to Luke, Alex tried to stand. Luke screamed in agony as he whipped his hand out of his pocket, holding that knife that Alex would never tease him for carrying again. The blade glinted in the dull starlight for only a second before Luke drove it into the wolf’s side, once… twice.... At least four times, faster than should have been possible. The animal finally let go and backed away, but Luke screamed and stomped at it, slashing. A bloodied line whipped across the bridge of its snout, and it was like a switch flipped. Its entire body language changed. It was no longer exuding a pressure, but rather it was backing away with furious reluctance. Luke stomped again and it skittered back, turning to look at Bobby in the tree. Luke grunted and lunged, but this time his stab fell short and he toppled. The wolf bolted into the night, and Luke doubled over on the ground with the rest of them. _

_ Bobby was calling out to them from the tree. Luke was fumbling with his phone, but even if his hand wasn’t slick with blood, the thing didn’t even work half the time anyway. Reggie was groaning on the ground, and Alex felt like his entire body was on fire. He felt like all his blood was trying to escape him at once, and all he wanted to do was scream. After that it was all a blur. He remembered Bobby finally appearing above them, and he looked scared. The thing about his expression that was burned eternally into Alex’s brain was that he was scared. Not for them, but of them.  _

“You need a hand with that, bud?” Ray snapped Alex out of his daydream, standing in the entryway. Alex jumped in alarm; he hadn’t heard him come up.   
“Uh, you don’t have to,” Alex began awkwardly. He wondered, unbidden, if this was what it was like to have a father that gave a damn. Turns out Luke wasn’t the only one trying to brood today.    
“Nonsense. I’ll get the other end,” Ray dismissed, taking up the other end. He leaned around it to call out to Luke and Reggie, “Be quick, you two. Just grab what you need and let’s go.”   
  


Together, they shuffled the item down the creaky stairwell and into the Molinas’ car. Alex noticed there was a very faded sticker of a flower on the back windscreen as they shut the tailgate, but didn’t think much of it. Reggie followed quickly after, his banjo case over his shoulder, and apparently noticed it too.    
“I thought Julie was more of a butterfly girl,” he observed, pointing to it.    
“That’s not a thing,” Alex muttered.   
“Sure it is. You got your butterfly girls, your flower girls, your vampire girls. Don’t even get me started on the horse girls,” Reggie rattled on.    
“Actually, that was my wife’s,” Ray said softly, although Alex couldn’t entirely disprove that Ray wasn’t just trying to stop Reggie from talking. “Definitely a flower girl,” he added, throwing Reggie a bone.    
  
Luke was at the landing now, giving them all a weird look. If he had thoughts on this, he didn’t comment, instead zeroing in on the bag slung over Reggie’s shoulder. “Please tell me that’s not the banjo.”   
“It’s the banjo,” Alex nodded to him, and he rolled his eyes.    
“I can’t help the country, Luke. It’s inside of me,” Reggie defended, following Ray’s lead to get into the car.    
Alex scrunched up his nose, disgust rising in his throat. “If you never say that again you can keep the banjo.”   
“Deal,” agreed Reggie, sliding into the front passenger seat.   
“I think you just sang into the sea witch’s cowboy hat,” Luke muttered, sliding into the back seat across from Alex.   
  


The drive back was mostly quiet, save for one point. Reggie was humming to himself, and Ray kept glancing across like hearing someone enjoy music was the light of his day. He glanced back through the mirror at Luke, then picked nervously at the steering wheel. “When we lost Rose, I didn’t know if Julie would ever be able to play again,” he admitted softly. Reggie stopped tapping his knees and looked over, surprised. Luke had been listening to his music with one earbud in, but took it out, a frown creasing his brow. “She dropped out of music, kept telling me everything was fine, she just wanted to be a… butterfly scientist.” His laugh was soft, nostalgic.  
“Lepidopterist,” Reggie chimed in, looking way too pleased with himself, and Alex gawked at the fact he even knew what that was.   
“Right. But I think she was afraid she’d lost music when she lost her mom, so she never tried. When I walked in and saw you guys singing and laughing, that’s the most alive I've ever seen her in a long time.” He might have been crying, but Alex couldn’t see from his angle. It wasn’t his business anyway. “It was the first time she’s touched that piano in three years.”  
Reggie reached across and patted his shoulder. “You’re a great dad, Ray. She’s proud of you too.” An oddly emotionally intelligent quip from Reggie, as it turned out. Alex and Luke shared a look, but they quietly agreed to let Ray have his moment and Julie have her privacy. Ray would find out about Rose’s song when Julie was ready to share it.   
  
Flynn had gone home when they got back, and Ray had to duck back out to get Carlos. The boys hauled their stuff into the studio, where they had dragged the mattresses up from the bunker. Ray said there was no harm in it, and the basement felt way too clinical, given the white walls and literal clinic in the corner. Julie came downstairs with more blankets and an old lamp for them so they could feel more at home, and ended up hanging with them for a while as Alex and Reggie sorted through their clothes. The dregs of Luke’s mood were beginning to shed away, but he was still sitting away from the group, earbuds in and staring at the same blank page in his notebook. The thing was ratty and nearly out of pages. Julie followed Alex’s gaze.

“Is he okay?” She whispered, almost like they were conspiring. “He looks mopey.”   
“Doesn’t he always,” Alex tried to dismiss, but maybe she was more onto it than he gave her credit for. “He hates our apartment. Nothing reminds him of his life like the place where he lives it,” he shrugged. It wasn’t much of an answer, but Alex knew what he meant in his heart, because both him and Reggie felt it too. The three of them had spent the last Christmas in that shitty apartment with nobody but each other, and they didn’t even realise the day had come and gone until an ex girlfriend had texted Luke three days later to invite them to a New Years’ Eve party. It seemed like all the good things happened everywhere but home for the three of them.   


Whatever Julie heard in his tone made her pause for a second. Then she got up from her spot by Reggie’s duffel stuffed full of random crap to disappear back into the house. Maybe he scared her off talking like that? He tried not to feel guilty about it, watching Luke tap his foot to his music. About a minute later though, Julie came back, with a sparkly silver notebook in hand. She held it out to Luke and he pulled out one earbud, staring at her. Alex tried not to eavesdrop, but his hearing was pretty good. It was hard not to hear.   
  
“You needed more pages,” she announced. “I remembered I had this lying around.”   
Luke sucked in a short breath. “I can just get one, you don’t have to --”   
“I wasn’t using it anyway. You’ll give it a better life than my bottom drawer, trust me,” she smiled. He could hear it in her tone.   
“What if you wanna write something?”   
“I’ll use my laptop, because I’ve caught up to the 21st century,” she replied smugly, teasing him.   
“You can’t--” Luke began, stopping himself. Then he softened. “Thanks, Julie.” He put his pen down on his own book and took hers, flipping through the pages. “But you really should write on paper. It’s different, i’m telling you.”   
“I’ll take your word for it,” she sighed, flopping down next to him. “You haven’t written anything yet,” she observed bluntly, leaning over to inspect the page..    
“Sometimes you feel like you want to write, but what you actually need to do is think. A blank page is great for thinking,” he advised sagely. “That, and good music.”  
She stared at him for a long moment, then nodded. Julie didn’t prod this theory, she just accepted it for what it was. “Good music huh?” she asked instead, picking up the stray earbud with a questioning brow. Alex knew Luke wasn’t really much of an earbud sharer, but he nodded sheepishly to her, and she proceeded with that permission to lift it to her ear.   
  
They ended up just sitting on that couch for the better part of an hour. Somewhere along the line Julie took Luke’s notebook and started doodling on the last page, and he didn’t even seem to care. Alex felt a foreign pang of jealousy watching them. It wasn’t that he was into Luke or anything -- that was a phase that was well in the past where it belonged. It was their easy chemistry that he envied. Just being able to connect with someone like that, without having to ask weird questions to deduce whether they were into dudes like some weird game of Cluedo. It didn’t help that the only other dudes around were his pack, which was not going to happen in a million years.

They didn’t realise how late it was until Ray stuck his head in the door. “Hey, guys. I’ve got dinner on the table, and there’s someone you should meet.”   
Julie sat up, taking the cord out of her ear. “Carlos?” There was an unspoken question in it.   
Ray smiled at her. “If they’re moving their stuff in, it’s only fair Carlos should know there are three strangers living in the studio. Last thing we want is him coming down here to use the bathroom and running into you guys, eh?”  
“Yes, we would prefer to avoid bathroom related incidents,” Reggie snorted, getting up from the floor. Alex followed suit, feeling the effects of hunching over for hours as he tried to unravel his spine.    
They headed up the garden path to the house, and Alex could hear Julie asking for Spotify links as her and Luke trailed behind. Briefly, he wondered about those little moments they seemed to be having more and more frequently, but the smell of a good lasagne hit him like a freight train as they stepped up to the porch, and all thoughts left his brain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so everyone is following, this story is set when they boys are 18/19 and Julie is 18, in her last year of High School. The flashback was when the boys were sixteen, placing their turning two-three years before the start of the story. As you are now aware, Bobby is present in the story but was not turned, but may know the boys are Werewolves. As of the flashback Luke hadn't run away yet.
> 
> We'll see a bit more clarification on Bobby and Luke's parents soon! Stay tuned :)
> 
> EDIT: Turns out I got a surge of attention on this because blush-and-books went and RECd MY FIC AAAAA THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I have a sideblog set up for my Ao3, if y'all would be interested in chapter updates and stuff I can always start doing those, it's petalpusher-ao3


	9. Just Like Heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a little bit longer than normal, I took a few cracks at it before I got it where I wanted it. The hardest part was trying to think of songs Luke would recommend to (spoilers) the girl he likes. Also surprise Nick cameo! You go little buddy, wear that weird hat. Make your dads proud.
> 
> Songs referenced are Just Like Heaven by The Cure, and Pretty Lady by Tash Sultana.

_ “Show me, show me, show me, how you do that trick _

_ The one that makes me scream, she said _

_ The one that makes me laugh, she said _

_ Threw her arms around my neck” _

Julie jolted as a hand waved in front of her face. She looked up from her workbook and yanked her earbud out. Flynn was looking bemused, standing next to her as the class was filing out of the room around them. “What’s up?” Julie questioned, closing her book slowly.  
“Class is over is what!” Flynn declared, kicking at the leg of Julie’s chair with the toe of her boot. “Get up, straggler. We have lunch to eat and people to ignore.”

Julie rolled her eyes but began to gather her things anyway, dropping her earbuds back into their charging case and gently sliding her notebook into her backpack. As Flynn waited, Julie stole a glance at her phone. Sixteen unread messages. Raising a brow, she unlocked her phone to find a group chat she hadn’t been in when she started class.

**Alex Mercer started the group  
** **Alex Mercer renamed the group Basement Boys  
** **Luke Patterson renamed the group Sunset Curve  
** **Alex Mercer renamed the group Basement Boys**

**_Alex_ ** _ : Luke don’t make me kick you.  
  
_ **_Luke_ ** _ : id like to see you try _

**Alex Mercer removed Luke Patterson from the group**

**_Reggie_ ** _ : 😂😂 _

**Alex Mercer added Luke Patterson to the group**

**_Luke_ ** _ : are you done _

**_Alex_ ** _ : I thought we could use a group chat with Julie. _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : in case we burn the house down 😜🔥 _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : or if we can’t find the bathroom _

**_Alex_ ** _ : You already know where that is though? _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : it was just an example  _

The rest of the messages were weird gifs. She also had a separate message from Luke, and she opened it to find a Spotify link to a Gang of Youths song. He'd sent her a few links the night he let her share his music, but this was the first one he'd provided unprompted. Her gut did a little somersault at the thought of him hearing a song and thinking of her. She tried not to get carried away with that thought. As she was looking at the first message, he sent through an additional two links.

Flynn leaned over her shoulder and raised a brow, which said more than words could. Sheepish, Julie tucked her phone into her pocket and gathered her stuff, hoping Flynn wouldn't bring it up. No such luck, because as soon as Julie stood she fell into step with that particular gait that always spelled gossip.

"So that's progressing," Flynn prompted, when Julie made it clear she wouldn't offer comment.  
"I don't know what you're referring to," Julie insisted, trying to hide her smile.  
"I'm referring to wolf boy dropping song recs in your inbox," Flynn announced bluntly, ignoring Julie's shushing. "And the fact that he whips out a dusty old acoustic and suddenly I hear you sing for the first time in years. Years!"  
Julie couldn't keep her giddy smile at bay. "I'm not taking the bait. Luke and I are friends. I barely know him," she pointed out, trying to appeal to Flynn's practical side so she would drop the subject and stop openly talking about the werewolves in Julie's garage while they were at school.

"Julie! Flynn!" They had barely made it out into the hallway when someone started calling their names. Julie spun on her sneaker and saw Nick jogging to catch up to them. "Glad I caught you!"  
"I'm sure you are," Flynn smirked, throwing Julie a meaningful look. Flynn had been insistent that Nick and Julie would get together for years. It was her longest running high school bet, but now it was senior year and the stars had never aligned for them. For a long time he dated Carrie Wilson, but they broke up over the summer and were just friends now. At the time, Flynn had sent her urgent screenshots of his single status on Facebook, but Julie didn't get the kick of excitement at the news that she once may have. Shame, because as much as Julie had been trying to deny it, some days it felt like Nick was grasping for excuses to be around her.

“This won’t take long,” he promised, only slightly out of breath from jogging to catch up with them. “Carrie’s having a party Saturday and she’s too proud to invite you herself.”   
“Shocker,” Flynn muttered under her breath.   
“You want us to come to a party at Carrie’s house?” Julie repeated, her brows furrowed with unmasked doubt. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” She meant it in a few ways. For one, Carrie made it clear she couldn’t stand Julie and Flynn. Another was that Julie had been to approximately two parties in her entire high school career and both were significant failures. The first time, someone had spilled a drink all over her favourite shirt. The second time would never be spoken of again.

Nick hesitated for a moment, bouncing from foot to foot. “This is senior year. Might as well enjoy it while we still can, right?”  
Julie wrung her hands together, but before she could think of an excuse, Flynn put a hand on her shoulder and leaned in. “We’re all over it. See you there, Nickypoo.” Flynn winked at him, and he had the courtesy to try not to look confused.  
“Great. I’m glad you’re coming,” he tried, and Julie tried not to notice that he looked at her for a little bit too long when he said it. He gave a wave and sauntered off in that gait reserved for lacrosse players, and Julie realised that she had been tense across her shoulders for the whole conversation. Why did she feel almost… guilty?

“Well that was a weird vibe,” Flynn scoffed dismissively. “He’s right though, might as well get out there before we go all wrinkly!”  
“Yeah, sure,” Julie hummed distractedly. “I should have asked if I could bring plus-ones.”  
“What, so you can invite those wolf boys you, and I quote, 'barely know'?” Flynn’s eyebrows shot up. “You can’t seriously bring them.”  
“Why not? I’m sure nobody will care,” Julie defended.  
“Because people--” Flynn stopped to make a conscious effort to lower her voice. “Because people tried to kill them, or did you forget that part?”  
“That was Sunset Boulevard. It probably happens daily there,” Julie joked, although a pit was forming in her stomach, a reminder that Flynn was right; Ray had told her about silver and werewolves, about what people did to werewolves for something they couldn’t control. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could still see Luke screaming on that table, trying to keep the violence at bay while it threatened to overflow… all because someone shot him for what he was. 

The party wasn’t her decision to make either way, though. It didn’t seem fair to deem it too dangerous on their behalf. “I’ll give them the option. They’ve been stuck at my house for weeks, Flynn. People can’t live like that.”   
“Oh yes. Ray Molina's cooking, all that endless free time, cute girl upstairs... I'm sure it’s torture,” she deadpanned, her tone drenched in sarcasm. 

They made it to the cafeteria and Julie slid into her seat, producing her phone from her pocket. There were three more gifs in the group chat, and Luke had sent her two more songs. For a moment she had a nagging urge to send Luke a song herself, but she shied away. Instead, she opened the Basement Boys chat.

**_Julie_ ** _ : It’s only lunch and you’ve already blown up my phone. _

**_Julie_ ** _ : Amazing. _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : JULIE!  _

**_Alex_ ** _ : We’re making our own fun. _

**_Alex_ ** _ : How’s school? _

**_Julie_ ** _ : Not over yet _

**_Luke_ ** _ : bummer _

**_Julie_ ** _ : How would you guys like to come to a party on Saturday? _

**_Julie_ ** _ : Nothing crazy, I promise. _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : you wanna bring us out like… in public? _

**_Reggie_ ** _ : bold choice _

**_Alex_ ** _ : What he means to say is yes please _

**_Luke_ ** _ : i only go to crazy parties, sorry 😜😜 _

**_Julie_ ** _ : It’s at my friend Carrie’s. Maybe you’ll get to meet her dad! _

**_Luke_ ** _ : my favorite thing to do is meet dads _

**_Julie_ ** _ : Shut up! He’s like, famous. I thought you’d be excited since he’s a guitarist and all. _

**_Luke_ ** _ : oh fuck, who? spill! _

_**Julie** : Trevor Wilson _

Julie waited with her bottom lip between her teeth as three little dots popped up to indicate someone was typing, knowing the guys would probably lose it. But after a minute of the dots disappearing and reappearing, she was starting to get concerned. She sent three more messages prompting a response and even linked his wikipedia page in case they didn’t recognise, but by the time lunch was over she still had radio silence. It was starting to worry her. She hadn’t ever known the guys to be… well, quiet. Quite the opposite, if anything. Had she said something wrong? 

On the way home from school, she stopped off at the store to pick up a box of gushers, a bag of starburst and some cheetos. She had been turning the conversation over in her head all day, and she was certain there wasn’t anything potentially offensive in her invitation to the party. She just couldn’t make sense of it. 

When she walked in the door, she was surprised to hear laughter coming from the kitchen. She dropped her school bag by the entryway and rounded into the kitchen to find the three boys and her dad, covered in flour, laughing like they had known each other for years. When they spotted her they all shouted a greeting, and her dad beckoned her over.

“What are you guys doing?” She asked, wondering if the reason they hadn’t responded to the big news was because they had been doing this all day. She got a little closer and saw that her dad had a sheet of homemade pasta in front of him.   
"Making linguine the old fashioned way," Ray winked, flour all over his face.   
"Wanna help?" Reggie was beaming, testing the crank on the KitchenAid attachment like it was the most nifty thing he'd ever seen.  
Julie considered it for a moment. "No, that's okay. I promised Carlos I'd help him with his math homework today."  
"Oh. Thanks Julie, that's really good of you," her dad smiled at her, and her heart warmed. She knew it hadn't been easy for her dad on his own. On top of that, he'd just taken on three teenagers with a dangerous secret, and he never lost his stride. Now more than ever he needed her help. 

Julie nodded, sparing a glance at the boys, though she couldn't help but notice that they were avoiding eye contact with her. Maybe she was imagining things. "If you guys are up here, is it okay if I use the studio until Carlos gets home?" It felt weird having to ask, but the studio was basically their room at the moment.   
"Yeah, of course," Alex answered, smearing more flour on his nose in his efforts to remove what was already there.  
"It's your house Julie, you don't have to ask," Luke added quickly, from his perch on the kitchen bench where it looked like he was more interested in taking extremely zoomed in snaps of Reggie's face than helping.  
Julie blinked. "I know it's my house, you guys are still entitled to privacy," she asserted. "But if you're sure?" Luke looked up from his phone, with a really weird expression on his face.  
Reggie answered for him, offering a reassuring smile "We're sure. Go do your thing." 

Julie nodded her thanks and disappeared back out the door, heading to the studio. Despite the boys leaving her on read, she was still cautiously optimistic about the party with Flynn. They'd always been close, but ever since her secret had come out, Julie felt a new protectiveness. Julie had gotten used to being the vulnerable one in a way. It was a comforting change of pace to have something to help Flynn with… even if that something was keeping her away from faucets.

Julie sat at the piano and considered the keys beneath her fingers. Their familiar texture, their weight when she tested the keys. The song that had been stuck in her head all day sprung to mind, and she copied the riff on the keys in front of her. It took her a few tries, but she found it. The success brought a rush of giddy excitement, and she couldn’t help but grin.

"Sounds good on keys," Luke said, and she jumped a little to find him leaning on the barn door. "Sorry. Didn't mean to sneak up."  
"It's been stuck in my head," Julie admitted. "I blame you."  
"Did you listen to the ones I sent you today?" He asked hopefully, taking a couple steps forward. "Some of my favourite guitarists. I was thinking, if you're up to it--"  
"Are we good?" Julie interrupted, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. "Sorry. You guys just never responded to my message, I thought maybe I'd made you mad somehow."  
Luke was quick, straightening like a kid caught doing something wrong. "Yeah, of course we're good. We just got distracted." He must have seen she didn't look convinced, because he added, "We get pretty bored when you're at school. Gotta keep ourselves entertained somehow."  
Julie softened, just a little. "With linguine?"  
"Who can say no to that?" He grinned, pacing the room, and she chuckled. But then he was moving to lean on the other side of the baby grand, and that troubled look was back. "We just…" he seemed to consider his words for a second. "It's probably not smart for us to go to parties at famous peoples' houses right now. You know, just in case."

Julie couldn't shake the feeling that there was something he wasn't saying, but she didn't know how to bring that up without being rude or nosey. It was easy to forget they weren't just cool guys hanging at her house sometimes. 

"I did listen to them. I liked Pretty Lady, but I've mostly had Just Like Heaven on repeat," Julie admitted, trying to steer the topic somewhere more comfortable. She'd been translating the lead riff of the song to the piano when he'd walked in. "Catchy."  
"Mm. You know, we should play it sometime. The band. Uh, plus you, of course," he blurted kind of awkwardly. "If you want."  
"You wanna jam with me?" It was a genuine surprise. She knew she'd been pretty good back in the day, but she was sorely out of practice now.   
"Don't sound so surprised. I can't do the riff  _ and _ the rhythm. I'm good but I'm not that good." He looked only a little embarrassed when he added, "Plus… you're kind of amazing."  
Julie felt her cheeks heat up, and suddenly the opposite side of the piano was too close for him to be standing. Last time they jammed when they were cheering Reggie up, she thought she had imagined the moment when Luke had caught her eye and lost his timing in the song. Now she wasn't so sure. Or maybe she was reading into this way too much and falling into the gravity of a cute boy with a mysterious secret. "Well, since you asked so nicely, I guess it can't hurt."

Luke beamed, shifting his weight from toe to toe. "Sweet. Though uh, that's mostly what I came down here to ask you actually," he declared awkwardly. There were a few beats of silence. "That and…" He trailed off, eyes on the corner where she had dropped the candy she bought from the store. It was still in the bag.   
"Hmm. Ulterior motive," Julie teased, trying not to smile and failing miserably. That was all the permission he needed to go for the bag. 

He tore into the starburst packet with no decorum, sending wrapped candies scattering. It was like he was tearing into prey. Little things like that reminded her that he was as much a wolf in a person's body as he was a person in a wolf's body. Somewhere in there, instincts were influencing him in ways he probably didn't realise. Julie had noticed the way they always slept in a cluster, and how one of the boys always had to sit closest to the door, like Flynn's Husky used to when they were kids. Julie couldn't imagine keeping a secret as big as theirs under wraps.

"Can I ask you a weird question?" Julie asked, before she lost the nerve.  
"I knew this was coming," he laughed, talking through a mouthful. "Shoot.'  
"Do you ever…" she paused, rephrasing in her head. "Have you ever tried to just bury it? Try to… live normally?"  
Luke, still seated on the floor by the bag, crossed his legs. "Not the weirdest question I've ever gotten, you're gonna have to try harder." Julie rolled her eyes at him, and he sighed. "I probably could stop it, but it'd be miserable and probably wouldn’t even work. It's not easy being us, but it beats trying not to be us. You can't deny what’s inside your soul. Kinda like music." The look he fixed her with was unwavering.

Julie had a feeling he wasn't just talking about himself and the band. Ever since her mom died, she had been afraid that she didn't have the spark anymore, but finding that last song her mom wrote was like flipping a switch. It was all she wanted to do now. She hadn't planned to talk about her mom or the song with the guys, but it felt so unfair knowing so much about them when she didn't share anything in return. Seeing them at their most vulnerable and their most violent seemed way too private. That first night she saw Luke, she might have seen something reflected in his face, a certain fear and helplessness that reminded her of the way she had felt when she was told her mom was gone. Like the world was collapsing and she was powerless. 

Luke was right; Julie was made to play music, to share it with the world. The world seemed like a big step just yet, but she could start small. So she folded the lid down over the keys, got comfortable in her seat, took a deep breath, and began to tell Luke about Rose Molina. 


	10. The Spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there are any errors or awkward bits, I did a bit of a speed run on the edit for this chapter as I was trying to push it out before bed. I hope you’re enjoying it, let me know what you think!

“Julie, stop blinking,” Flynn scolded, brandishing a mascara wand dangerously close to her eyeball. “You really need to learn to do this stuff yourself.”  
“You’re probably right,” Julie smirked, trying to keep her eyes open. "But why bother when you're so much better at it?"  
Flynn begrudgingly took the compliment, heaving a sigh before going in carefully to finish her work. When she finally managed to apply the mascara, she sat back, using a hand to tilt Julie's chin left and right in a careful assessment of symmetry. Seemingly satisfied, Flynn clapped her hands and ordered "Okay, you're done. Now get dressed! We're already VERY fashionably late.

Julie checked her phone, and noticed quickly that Flynn was right and it was already 9pm. Luckily her outfit was quick to throw on: a white flutter-sleeve romper with a black sequin scatter on the lower hem, and her mom's glittery white combat boots. She pushed her hair out of her face with a puffy white headband, admiring Flynn's handiwork on her eyes. She didn't go overboard as per Julie's request, just a light mauve eyeshadow with sharp winged liner. With a sad smile, Julie admired that this was the sort of thing that her mom would’ve taught her to do if they hadn’t run out of time.

It wasn't often Julie got an excuse to dress up, so a part of her was happy. But the experience also felt hollow, because she would be going to a party full of people she felt awkward around. The other obvious factor was that after the revelation that werewolves exist, a party at Carrie's fancy house had been significantly pushed into the realm of the mundane in Julie's mind. Her thoughts kept drifting back to singing with the boys in the studio, watching Reggie and Alex shoot hoops, and watching Luke across the room as he spammed her inbox with Spotify links while they watched movies.

Regardless of where she would rather be, Julie had promised to itch Flynn, so they loaded themselves into the car that was running in the driveway, Flynn’s sister tapping the wheel impatiently. She was kind enough to drive them there, an offer the girls readily accepted given that the walk would have killed in the sky-high sandals Flynn was wearing. She had gone for goth understated — a black maxi dress with mesh detail around the shoulders and long sleeves. Julie wasn't sure what the plan to get home was, because Flynn's sister was headed to her own party after dropping them. Flynn, as usual, was opting to cross bridges when she came to them. 

"I haven't seen you look like this in a really long time," Flynn said suddenly, as they pulled into Carrie's street. "You look... alive."  
Julie felt her heart do a backflip, looking across the back seat at her friend. "Really?"  
"Yeah. I mean it," she grinned. "I never thanked you for being so cool about…." she glanced at the front seat, where her sister was currently tapping the wheel to the beat of her playlist. "You know." As far as Julie understood, Flynn's sister had a different mom and had been born unafflicted with aquatic tendencies.  
Julie leaned over with a fond smile and whispered, "You could peel off your skin to reveal you're actually a lizard alien and I would still be your best friend."

When they pulled up outside the party, it was naturally in full swing. Carrie had actually hired security at the gate, and as their ride disappeared down the street Julie was hit with a bolt of anxiety that they wouldn't be let in. This was quickly proven to be an unfounded worry, as Nick had pulled through getting their names on the list. They passed the wall topped with menacing barbed wire, a feature Julie didn't remember from her last visit. It had clearly been a very, very long time. 

The first thing that struck her upon entering was the sheer volume of people. It blew Julie away that Carrie could possibly have a circle so big. There were people everywhere Julie didn’t even recognise from school, and although she wasn’t overdressed she definitely felt unusual in such nice clothes. Flynn took her arm, noticing her hesitation, and led her through to the back of the house where the pool overlooked the moonlit ocean.

“Fresh air will help,” Flynn reassured, patting Julie’s hand as though she were a fretting grandmother trying to cross the street. That sentiment, Julie decided, was somewhat accurate.

Flynn was right though, and they found the crowd by the pool to be much more tolerable. Nobody was swimming since the weather wasn’t warm enough, but the area had been lit up with purple tinted flood lights using a questionable network of extension cables that Julie nearly tripped over as they made their way to some free seats. “Stay here, guard our spot. I'll get punch,” Flynn instructed excitedly. Julie opened her mouth to protest that she only wanted water, but her friend was alarmingly fast in those precarious shoes. It was hard to believe she was really a fish when she moved so gracefully on platforms.

Almost immediately her hand inched toward her phone, stored in the pocket of her romper. The group chat was silent, and she had to fight her disappointment that the boys hadn’t come with them. It seemed silly to miss their company after living with them for weeks, but it felt strange having so few memories of them in the world outside her garage. It didn’t feel like they were normal boys she knew, it felt like they were trapped in a separate reality from her daily life. As she sat in the horribly uncomfortable wire chair, staring at the purple light reflecting off the pool water, she decided that she didn’t want it to be that way. It wasn’t like she could do anything about it, but it was freeing to acknowledge it nonetheless.

She opened the group chat, a message to share her feelings tingling on the tips of her fingers, begging to be penned before she lost her nerve. But she never got the chance, because she felt someone approach her from the side. Julie deftly tucked her phone out of view, looking up to find Nick. Flynn wasn’t around to mediate now, and Julie felt a rush of anxiousness.

“You came,” he said, somewhat awkwardly. “I wasn’t sure you would.”  
“Neither was I,” Julie admitted, earnestly. “But I figure I have to remind everyone that I can be pretty when I want to be,” she added with a smirk,  
Nick clasped his hands in front of him. “You don’t have to try—“

Julie, mercifully, was saved from a very awkward encounter by a boy barreling into Nick from the door to the house, throwing an arm around his shoulders and clapping his back. “Nick! When’d you get here?”  
“Hours ago,” Nick laughed, shrugging the guy off playfully. “You’ve just been too busy flirting with girls to notice.”  
“Well I can flirt with you if you want,” laughed the boy, “But you look busy.” He spared Julie a glance, nodding his chin in greeting. Recognition passed vaguely across his features, and Julie felt a similar tingle in the recesses of her memory. The soft contour of his nose, the tired eyes, and the dark ashy brown colour of his hair all felt familiar.  
“I am not,” Nick was muttering under his breath, but Julie could hear him quite clearly.   
The boy tore his gaze from Julie after what felt like an eternity. “Come find me later, I wanna talk to you about that collab,” said the boy, giving Nick one last pat on the shoulder before disappearing back inside.

“Sorry, that was—“ Nick began, but Flynn beat him to the introduction as she passed the boy on her way back out to Julie.  
“Was that Carrie’s brother? Haven’t seen him in forever,” she remarked, raising her eyebrows. “He got cute.”  
Julie clapped her hands excitedly as the statement jogged her memory. Bobby Wilson, Carrie’s older brother. When they were kids he used to be around the house a lot when Julie would visit. When he was twelve he went to some European school for a year or two, so they stopped seeing him around. Shortly after that they stopped hanging out with Carrie altogether.

Nick shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, well my friends are expecting me inside soon for a game," he announced. "But I'll come see you guys later?"  
"Beer pong," Flynn nodded with understanding. "Good luck in there, lacrosse star."  
"Thanks," he laughed, and threw Julie a wave before following Bobby back inside.

"Crazy that Bobby's home," Flynn remarked, finally taking a seat and folding one leg over the other, her skirt restless in the sea breeze.   
"Mm. He looks like his dad," Julie commented. "But less old, obviously."  
"Don't let Trevor hear you say that. You know how snesistive rock stars are," Flynn teased, and they both snickered.

As she sat idle, Julie took a sip of her punch only to immediately stick her tongue out in disgust. "Is there hand sanitizer in this?"   
"It's just vodka," Flynn laughed. "It's supposed to taste disgusting."  
"Are mermaids even allowed to drink?" Julie threw back, resting the disgusting mixture of spirits and cheap pineapple juice on her knee.   
"I can't tell if that's supposed to be ironic," Flynn deadpanned. "Obviously we can drink."  
"Don't know why you'd want to when it tastes like this," Julie muttered. Still, she tried another sip, thinking maybe she would adjust to the taste. She was wrong, and had to resist the urge to tip it out then and there.

A tennis ball came bouncing past them as a pack of six or so lacrosse boys lost it in a very loosely regulated game of tennis. There was no net, and it seemed like they were just hitting balls for the sake of it with some equipment they found. Other than that, not a lot of people were outside. The air was kind of chilly, only tolerable to Julie thanks to the post heater near their seats. It was hooked up to the same precarious power setup at the purple lights. An effort which seemed arbitrary given the unpopularity of the outdoors among the party guests. Just inside, Julie could see people crowded all the way up to the glass doors, moving to the music.

"So, Nick seems very interested," Flynn started with a knowing smile.   
"Not this again," Julie groaned. "I don't see it happening. He's cute but…. we're about to graduate, I'm waiting to hear back from UCLA, he's for sure going to Juliard. It wouldn't work."  
And do werewolves go to Juliard?" Julie shot Flynn an incredulous look. The woman had not even an ounce of shame, and she was sipping her drink casually  like she wasn’t trying to actively incite Julie into an emotional crisis.  
"Come on, Flynn. Werewolves are dangerous. One hit of pepper spray and I’d be a goner," Julie attempted, but she knew deep down her heart wasn't in it.  Flynn could see it too. "Please. You're a risk taker, and a shapeshifting boy with a cute smile is exactly your kind of risk. Don't deny it."

But she was wrong. To Julie, he didn't feel like a risk at all. She'd never connected with anyone like she had that day he came home, looking like the world was on his shoulders, and they sat for hours sharing music in silence. For weeks she had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the reality to set in, but it hadn’t. Before she had time to consider what that meant, Julie turned it back on Flynn. 

"Alright. Then let's talk about the real reason you wanted to come to this party;" Julie shot back. "You want Carrie to notice you."  
"What!?"  
"It's true. We turned down hundreds of Nick's parties this year, yet the moment one at Carrie's house turned up, your tune changed." Julie, finally feeling triumphant, grinned. "And I think she asked Nick to invite us and told him not to let on, because she secretly wants you here, too."

Flynn looked flustered, more so than Julie had ever seen her. Before their conversation could spiral further into the realm of harsh truths, the sounds of a guitar began to sound through the glass doors in front of them. Their conversation gladly forgotten, they got up and crossed the courtyard to the entryway, peering past the gathered crowd to see Bobby perched on the arm of a chair, an acoustic in hand. He was playing a song Julie didn’t recognise, but he made it look almost as effortless as Luke did. Almost. The display took her back to that day in the studio when they sang to Reggie, and it once again made her wish the boys were with them. 

Julie left Flynn to watch the show, sipping her punch if only to get rid of it. It was a little embarrassing, but this was the first time she’d had a drink that wasn’t a toast at a family wedding. She really didn’t get the appeal of drinking, and the sharp taste of the cheap vodka didn’t do much to change her mind on the matter. As the faint sounds of Bobby playing his guitar inside refused to stop spurring memories of Luke, she checked her phone. No new messages. She didn’t know what she was expecting. 

Julie was tipping the last of her disgusting drink down her throat when Flynn wandered over to her spot by the still pool. “You’re right. I came here for Carrie,” Flynn admitted. “And I appreciate that you knew that and still came with me.”  
“Any time,” Julie smiled slowly, dizzy from the punch. “Please never make me drink that stuff again,” she added, with a short laugh.  
“Noted,” Flynn nodded. She glanced inside, where everyone crowded Bobby, and then her gaze drifted to their surroundings. “This lighting is really cute, and so are we.”  
Julie knew what the change in Flynn’s tone meant right away. “Carrie does know how to set up mood lighting,” she admitted, following Flynn closer to where one of the light stands was set beside the pool. 

Flynn lifted her phone, and Julie leaned into the frame. They had done this often enough, so Julie knew to take the phone and snap candids of Flynn by the pool. They swapped places, and Flynn got down low to the ground to get a good angle. Julie was halfway through trying to figure out a pose that wasn’t completely awkward when the bushes beside her jolted violently, and one of the lacrosse boys dove in after a tennis ball lost in the hedge. Flynn stood to examine the photos, and the boy re-emerged. Julie didn’t pay him much mind as she approached Flynn to review the photos, which meant she was entirely unprepared for him to run into her as he bolted past. Unsteady on her feet, Julie stumbled forward, saved from hitting the pavement by Flynn.

Unfortunately, there was nobody next to Flynn to save  _ her _ . It felt like she stumbled in slow motion, Julie desperately grasping for her but only managing to slap her phone from her hand instead. It clattered to the pavement seconds before a huge splash as Flynn hit the water, a great collar of water erupting around her as she disappeared beneath the surface.

Flynn, the mermaid, was in the pool at a house party.

The lacrosse boys, on the other side of the patio, hooted and laughed at Flynn, a blur under the water. Julie felt her heart in her throat as they made fun of their friend for his clumsiness. If there really was a god they were smiling on Flynn though, because the boys proceeded into the house as they cackled.

Flynn resurfaced, a look of sheer terror written on her face. Nobody was outside because of Bobby’s distraction, but the song could only last so long. The lighting in the pool area meant that any attempt to get Flynn out would be seen the moment a partygoer got bored and looked out the massive glass windows. It was as though the whole house was made of windows, which was reasonable for a house on the water but in this moment it was fuelling a sudden and unexpected rage in her. She tried to focus on Flynn and ignore the architecture; Julie saw her tail as a blur under the surface, but she didn’t even have time to stop and admire the first time she saw Her best friend transform. Her eyes fell to the empty punch cup in her hand, and an idea sprung to mind.

“I got you,” Julie reassured, as she dropped to her knees and scooped a cup full of pool water.   
“What are you doing!?” Flynn demanded, clinging to the side of the pool. “Julie!”   
“Trust me,” Julie asserted, hurrying off with her cup. It was a stupid idea, but it was the only one she had, and the buzzing in her head induced by the gross punch wasn’t leaving room for rational thought.  


The haphazard assembly of power strips and extension cables Julie noticed earlier had been a blessing in disguise after all. Before she could have second thoughts, she tossed her cup of water on the power strip, closing her eyes and hoping for the best.

For a millisecond, nothing happened, and Julie began to wonder if her plan had worked. But then, an arc of electricity jumped from one terminal to the next, and the circuit shorted. With no warning for the rest of the partygoers, the entire house went dark. The gathered masses let out a collective cry, mixtures of dismay and excitement, and Julie had precious minutes to get Flynn out of sight while they were distracted.

"Okay," Julie huffed. "We have to get you out and…" Their surroundings weren't ideal for hiding mermaids, now that Julie was considering it. The beach was too wide to risk rolling her into the ocean, as it would take too long and someone would surely spot them. The bushes below the patio though… they were below the line of sight. "We have to hide you in a bush."  
"No way! This dress is brand new," Flynn hissed, but they both knew they didn't have a choice. "My shoes are totally at the bottom of this pool too," Flynn lamented. She dove for them, resurfacing to toss them at Julie. "Don't lose 'em!"  
"Quick, swim to the other side. I'll help pull you out." Julie tossed the shoes aside on a deck chair and circled the pool, meeting Flynn on the far side, toward the ocean. 

Julie watched as Flynn deftly hopped up on the side, sleek scales glittering in the moonlight. They were dark at her waist, reflecting the light harshly, but magenta scales crept up her tail from the bright pink fin at the end of it, fluttering and folding like a goldfish's. Julie gawked only for a second, kept on task by the pounding of her heart like a drum in her ears. She hooked her arms under Flynn's and dragged her, huffing at the weight. Flynn couldn't do much to help, but at least her slick scales made her slide a little easier on the polished concrete. Julie's eyes never left the window as they made slow progress towards the safety of the drop-off, but nobody turned around. Flynn pushed her long dress down over her tail to the best of her ability, until Julie got to the edge of the concrete and unceremoniously flipped Flynn over the edge.

The mermaid fell two feet with a grunt, hitting the gardenbed below. It wasn't ideal; the bushes were more sparse than she would have liked, and the garden was only four feet wide before a rough stone retaining wall dropped off the rest of the way to the sand below. If Julie could catch Flynn safely, they could drop to the beach and escape along the wall, but Julie had no way of carrying her friend. Flynn's dress hid most of her tail, but that wouldn't help if they couldn't go anywhere.

The next option was to wait it out. "How long until you change back!?" Julie asked, trying and failing to sound calm.  
"When I dry enough," Flynn replied miserably, trying to press herself against the concrete to better hide herself.   
"So how long is that!?"  
“Julie, it's cold and my hair got wet. You know how long this takes to dry?" Flynn scoffed, trying and failing to wind her soggy braids into a knot on top of her head. "It could take hours. We can't wait." She was rubbing her neck like it was sore already, and Julie couldn't imagine how heavy her hair felt.

They couldn't wait, so they had to move. Flynn's dress might save them, except Julie couldn't move her. Julie realised that their problem, primarily, was mobility. She needed help.

She pulled out her phone immediately as the thought popped into her head. It so happened she knew three strong dudes who were chill with the supernatural and were doing absolutely nothing at the present moment. Her thumb hovered over the send button, as it occurred to her that there was a risk involved with asking for them to come and help her. Then again, there was a very real and immediate risk to Flynn if they didn't come, and as much as she hated to put her friends on a scale like this, Flynn's emergency took priority.

**_Julie:_ ** _ I need you here, ASAP. _

**_Julie:_ ** _ 911!!!! _

**_Julie:_ ** _ Not a joke guys, please! _ ****

**_Julie:_ ** _ Hello!!!?? _

**_Julie:_ ** _ Something happened, we need to get Flynn out of here 🧜‍🚨 _

Julie's heart pounded as the messages sat unseen, knowing every second Flynn sat down there was a second she could potentially be discovered. Julie even considered calling her dad, even if it meant blowing her lie that she would be spending the night at Flynn's watching movies. But finally, after what felt like hours, three little dots popped up.

**_Luke:_ ** _ be there in 20 _

**_Julie:_ ** _ THANK YOU!!!  _ **_💜_ **

Julie could have screamed she was so relieved. As she leaned over the edge to tell Flynn the good news, she didn't even think to question if Luke needed the address. 

All she had to do was guard the bushes for twenty minutes until the boys showed up. Easy enough, except that Nick walked out the door at that moment, his eyes finding her in the dark as everyone scrambled to fix the power outage. It seemed he was hellbent on being himself. 

  
  
  



	11. Old Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a bit longer! I hope you enjoy. This one and the next one (possibly) turning out to be a bit heavier on the Juke.
> 
> CW for alcohol consumption, minor injury

Ray's car wasn't parked up in its usual spot at the Molina residence when Alex ran up to find him, stricken with panic from Julie’s texts. Luke had been against telling her dad behind her back and they’d had a disagreement about it when the first message came through, but in the end Luke got what he wanted after all because Ray wasn’t home. The lingering scent of expensive cologne hung on the garden path, and Luke couldn’t shake the odd feeling that maybe Ray had secrets of his own. 

With no car, no real adult, and a fifteen minute drive to the party, the boys had a big problem to solve. It was later at night in suburbia, and the moon wasn't very bright. If they avoided cars and stuck to the shadows, they could be there in twenty as wolves. Knowing Julie needed their help, Luke barely deemed it a risk. Even if it meant potentially digging up some sour memories in the process.

"What if he's there?" Alex had asked as they picked up the backpacks they hadn't needed since the night they arrived.   
"What nineteen-year-old hangs out at their little sister's house party?" Luke had scoffed, but he secretly had the same doubts. If his sister was Julie’s age then she was only a year younger. It was not as unlikely as he was trying to convince himself, but he didn't know what he would do if Bobby was there. "It's gonna be fine."  
"Maybe he won't even recognise us," Reggie tried, earning himself a look from Alex. At the very least Luke admired his wishful thinking, even if it did fly in the face of reality. 

Ultimately Julie's emergency far outweighed their apprehension about Bobby, but Luke knew he would have gone with or without Alex and Reggie. They stuffed their clothes into the bags in the dark studio and fitted the packs over their shoulders, and Luke felt his entire body prickle with static electricity as he let the wolf take over. 

His bones ached and his joints popped, and he heard Reggie and Alex make sounds of discomfort as well as nature’s worst growing pains began to take hold. His ears made odd scrubbing and popping sounds as cartilage rearranged and hair grew. It was painful, but in the same way a massage was probably painful; it felt like every pop was correcting a problem, cracking a joint or resetting a dislocation. Maybe it was his wolf instincts telling him that this was what he was meant to feel like. It was a siren song, from one half of himself to the other. 

Always one to rush the transformation, Alex was already waiting by the barn doors. His pale fur reflected the moonlight while Reggie’s dark fur all but swallowed it. Luke followed them outside and helped them push the barn doors shut. Unless they got really unlucky, Ray would probably come home and assume they were asleep. Having to sneak around parents was something he hadn’t needed to do for a long, long time, but he still knew what he was doing. Things were a lot easier when the parent to be avoided wasn’t one's own.

Luke had missed the feeling of running like he had somewhere to be. The circumstances left something to be desired, but as his muscles buzzed with the thrill of running and his lungs burned with the cool night air, he was sure he’d never felt so... alive. It was easy to see why some wolves left civilization to live like this all the time. He’d never do it, of course, but there was something to be said of the freedom he felt. It was a rush, that same siren song beckoning him to his animal half.

The feeling faded when they reached Malibu, replaced with dread and anxiety. It wasn’t like they could have stopped to text Julie and get status updates, since they spent the whole run avoiding neighbourhood pets, taking complex routes to avoid street lights, and dodging cars. Trust LA never to go to sleep, especially on a Saturday night. Needless to say that Luke couldn’t wait to transform back and check on the girls, and he directed his pack to a pier a couple hundred feet down the beach from Bobby’s house. It wasn’t the safest place to shift your bones, but a house party was an even more precarious place to transform into a mermaid. The darkness covered them enough that they could switch and pull on their jeans in relative safety. 

The cold ocean air bit at their noses, and they used a phone light dimmed by Alex’s hands to check their jackets weren’t inside out, and to stuff Luke and Alex’s empty backpacks into Reggie’s. The sound of the music pumping was echoing out to sea, and an achingly familiar mansion lit the dark. Luke faltered for just a moment, until he felt his phone buzz in his hand.

**_Julie:_ ** _ Wait I didn’t give you the address!!  
_ **_Julie:_ ** _ Hello??  
_ **_Julie:_ ** _ It’s been 30, you said 20 and I am DYING UP HERE!!  
_ **_Julie:_ ** _ 😩😭 _

“Shit, come on,” Reggie grunted, reading the messages himself.   
“Wait,” Alex protested. “Shouldn’t we work out like a… a game plan?”  
“We have a game plan; Find Julie, help Flynn, bounce.” Luke shrugged his jacket on, his feet kicking up sand as he started towards the house.  
“Ah yes, thank you Luke,” Alex huffed sarcastically as Luke marched away. “Very specific!”  
Luke sighed and turned to face them. “Fine, uh… you two wait below the house while I sneak in the old fashioned way. I’ll find Julie and figure out where she’s got Flynn.”  
“And then?” Alex wrung his hands. “How are we going to get a mermaid out of a crowded house?”  
"Flipper out the window?" Reggie blurted, throwing his hands forward as though physically tossing the awkward comment into the air between them.  
Alex met Luke's gaze and they shook their heads with mutual exhaustion. "Just… we'll figure it out. Let's go." They were wasting time and Julie needed them.

Luke was hit with a painful pang of nostalgia when he planted his foot on the rock wall below Bobby’s house. The sand below the wall was where they used to meet, and the perfect path to scale the wall was still muscle memory. They would sneak up on weekends in the summer to play Halo in Bobby’s room. When they started their band, Bobby sometimes let them practice at his house when his family was out. Trevor didn’t like the three of them much, probably because they got Bobby into trouble more than a few times. Ironic, considering he was the only one to escape the incident — and he also hadn’t spoken a word to them since. No texts, no calls, no band practice. Ghosted, by the one person who knew their secret. It was almost enough to kill Luke’s nerve, but someone who hadn’t run away from him was still up there, and she needed his help. So he climbed.

The wall was about eight feet up, ending at a short strip of garden bed that sat below the plane of the back deck. Bushes lined the strip, framing the harsh, almost brutalist contour of the house. Luke made short work of the wall, scrambling to his hands and knees into the garden while Alex and Reggie waited on the sand below. “Fuck,” Luke muttered to himself, dusting off dirt from his favourite jacket. He didn’t remember it being so high.

“Hey!” Hissed a voice, and it was only tripping over his own foot that prevented Luke from launching himself backwards onto the sand eight feet below. Luke sucked in a breath and narrowed his eyes to locate the source of the sound. At first he hoped it might have been Julie, but then he saw a very dishevelled, very grumpy mermaid sit bolt upright from between two bushes. “What the hell took you so long!? It’s freezing out here!”  
“Yeesh!” Luke muttered, signalling for her to keep it down. “Alex and Reggie are just below, you gotta roll off here. They’ll catch you.”  
“No way,” Flynn refused. “That's way too far down, are you crazy?!”  
“They’ll catch you,” Luke reiterated, annoyance threaded into his tone. Unable to keep the nagging question at bay any longer, he added, “Where’s Julie?”  
Flynn rolled her eyes, but followed his insistence to scoot awkwardly to the edge of the garden in preparation to jump down. She leaned forward to peer down at the boys, her dark scales swallowing what little light escaped the party into the garden bed below. Reggie spotted her and waved. 

“Julie's up there somewhere, guarding the bushes from potential witnesses,” Flynn dismissed, then seemed to stop and chuckle. It was hard to tell in the dark. With a tinge of amusement in her tone, she added, "And fending off suitors."  
“I’ll go get her,” Luke decided aloud, brushing more dirt off his jacket.  
“Of course you will,” Flynn muttered.  
“What?”  
“Nothing,” Flynn snorted. She shifted her weight, her fins glinting ferociously in the faint moonlight, all angles and spines. Flynn was planning her jump, glancing up behind them to the party, but the coast seemed clear; Nobody was in sight, although distant voices could be heard over the music. “Keep a lookout while I jump, puppy dog,” she demanded.

Luke was about to tell her never to call him that, but she was gone by the time he opened his mouth. For someone opposed to the idea of jumping down from such a height, Flynn didn't make a lot of fuss when it came down to it. She made only a tiny squeak as she plummeted, and Luke heard a grunt as his pack caught her. He leaned over the edge to find Alex passing her his hoodie and Reggie throwing a thumbs up, the signal that they had it under control. At least that was one objective solved, but he still had to find Julie. Luke left them as they were preparing to carry Flynn somewhere quieter.

He scrambled up onto the deck, careful to do so behind the pool shed. Security wouldn't really expect someone to scale the wall, but it didn't hurt to be subtle. Luke ducked around the shed to scan the sparse crowd around the pool, but to his dismay, Julie wasn't anywhere to be seen. The air was a mix of smells, but even his less effective human nose picked up on the scent of her orchid shampoo on the air. She had been here very recently. If he had been able to transform he could have traced the scent as easily as a piece of string, but for now he would have to search the old-fashioned way. 

The upside was he knew his way around the house. The downside was the high risk of running into Bobby. 

He slipped in the sliding door carefully, pulling the collar of his denim duster up in the hopes it would make him stand out less. Thankfully, plus ones and strangers weren't uncommon at the average teen party in LA, so nobody questioned him on his first lap of the downstairs section. He was so concerned with being thrown out before he could find Julie that he was caught completely off guard when he felt a hand slide around the crook of his elbow, followed shortly by an unfamiliar girl swinging around to face him.

"You're from another school," she stated. It wasn't a question, it was a declaration.   
"Uh. Sure," Luke laughed awkwardly, content to let her draw her own conclusions. She was cute enough, but he had far more important things to worry about as his eye scanned the crowd.  
Seeming to sense his distraction, she deflated a little. "Are you here with someone?"  
In his anxiousness about being caught out as a crasher, he didn't immediately catch her meaning. "Have you seen Julie Molina?"  
A flash of dumbfoundedness crossed her expression, and Luke felt his own momentary spike of emotion -- annoyance. Why would she be surprised? The girl recovered quickly, to her credit. "Waiting for the bathroom about five minutes ago."  
Luke offered a half-hearted smile. "Thanks."

The girl sauntered off to greener pastures, and Luke set off to find the bathroom line. When he got there, the line was non-existent and the bathroom was vacant. He turned toward the crowded open living room before him. Julie wasn't tall, so he'd have no luck spotting her in the crowd normally. His stroke of genius was to slip through the throng and climb the stairs in the middle of the living space. His eyes scanned the crowd below him as a waft of orchid hit him, and it took him a moment to notice movement out of the corner of his eye.

Julie was at the top of the stairs, making her way down at speed. When she spotted Luke, she nearly lost her balance when she stopped short, surprise and relief written all over her face. He felt a lump in his throat stop whatever greeting was about to roll out, but thankfully she spoke over the awkward sound he made.  
“You’re here! Oh my gosh. Where’s Reggie? Where’s Alex? Is Flynn okay? How did you get here? Why didn’t you answer my texts!?” Julie blurted all at once, rushing down the steps to stand level with him. Now that she was close, she also smelled of tropical juice and vodka.  
“Can’t text without thumbs,” Luke replied, only realising how weak that was after he said it. “The guys are with Flynn.”   
“You came here on foot!?” She hissed, lowering her voice and leaning closer. He really wished she wouldn’t do that, but he made no move to reestablish their distance.   
“In a manner of speaking,” he laughed, forgetting for a moment where he was.    
Julie was trying not to smile. “What if someone saw you?” Julie was still keeping her voice down, as though anyone would be able to hear them over the music and chatter.   
Luke sucked in a nervous breath. “I had more important things to worry--”   
“Julie?”

Luke turned with Julie, the two of them taking a step back from each other like they’d been caught doing something they shouldn’t. A boy stood at the base of the stairs, politely trying not to look too confused by Luke. “Nick. Hey,” Julie blurted, descending the stairs. Luke followed a few steps behind until they were at the landing. “I was just trying to find you!”   
“You were?” Nick asked, perking up.    
“You were?” Luke muttered, skeptical.    
“Yeah. I just…. Hurled. Real bad,” Julie threw her hands up. “It was like Pompeii in there.” Luke furrowed his brow in confusion. Even in his human form, his nose was pretty good, and he had only smelled the punch on her breath -- no vomit.   
Nick’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Are you okay?”   
“Yeah-- well, no. I called my…” Julie trailed off, glancing over her shoulder at Luke. The more she tried to weave her web of lies, the more Luke suspected that she wasn’t entirely unaffected by the consumption of that punch. He had to get her out of there. “Luke’s taking me home.”   
“That’s a shame,” Nick replied with a sincerity that caught Luke off guard. The two of them shared a cautious glance. “It was nice having you here.”   
“And you as well,” Julie smiled, and Luke could only watch in confusion as she began to… bow. Sightly, but noticeably nonetheless.    
“Okay, let’s go,” Luke instructed, taking her shoulders and steering her toward the back of the house. “Nice meeting you Nick.”   
“Yeah, you too,” he called after them, but they were already gone.

“You’re a mastermind,” Luke couldn’t help but tease her as they wove their way through the crowd.    
“Hush,” she sighed. Sheepishly, she added “I didn’t actually puke, by the way.”   
“I know,” he rolled his eyes. Considering she was wearing spotless all-white without a drop of vomit, he was amazed the kid bought it. He had to admit, she had a certain kind of charisma about her. He was about to ask if she needed water before they left when a face in the crowd caught his eye, and everything ground to a halt.

Luke felt his blood begin to thunder in his ears, anxiousness picking at the seams of his composure. Without realising he was doing it, he snatched at Julie’s hand, gripping it and backing up. If Bobby hadn’t already seen him, he would soon if they didn’t do something. Julie’s question died on her lips as he yanked her to their right, circling the kitchen counter and crouching behind it. He nudged past the legs of people pouring drinks, ignoring their protests, and brought her round to the short hall that ran between the kitchen wall and the windows to the patio. There was a home theatre beyond it, unlit like the rest of the house. He could faintly hear a couple giggling in there, but he stopped in the half light of the hallway and pressed his back against the cool concrete, sucking in a breath. It felt like the noise would overwhelm him. He couldn’t focus on anything.

“What’s wrong?” Luke opened his eyes, and Julie was holding his face between her palms. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He took a breath, trying to focus on his lifeline in the noise, but a voice interrupted them.   
“Luke?” Bobby was standing at the end of the hall in the light, glancing between Julie and Luke. Luke took a step back, and Julie reached her hand behind her back to grip his. She might have been tipsy, but she could read a room.   
“He’s with me,” Julie defended casually.    
Bobby’s expression was laced with concern, and Luke realised he was seeing his little sister’s friend next to a monster. “You know this guy?”   
“Surprised someone like me could have friends?” Luke murmured, low but clear. The anger of his wolf was biting, but for once he had it under control. This was his fight, not the wolf’s.  
Bobby’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t say anything. In fact, he had the dignity to look ashamed for half a second. “Luke…”   
“I gotta go,” Luke interrupted. He didn’t want to hear excuses. “My friends are waiting for me.”   
  
He stepped around Bobby, and he felt Julie tighten her grip on his hand, following him out. He should have been worried that Bobby would follow them outside, but he knew that he wouldn’t. The encounter had left him reeling, but instead of the confusion he expected, he felt clarity. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t a freak. No matter how fast he walked, Julie only gripped his hand tighter and trotted along behind him.

  
They got to the edge of the patio and Luke jumped down, helping Julie follow. Now that they were out of sight, Julie caught his sleeve. He didn’t want to answer questions, but she was wringing her hands and waiting expectantly for him to meet her gaze. “I don’t want to talk about it. Not yet.”   
“You don’t have to,” Julie promised, catching him off guard. “I just wanted to say… thanks for coming here. It was a lot more to ask of you than I realised at first.”   
Luke blinked. “Any time,” he replied awkwardly. Then, with a bit more conviction, he added: “I mean it.”  
Julie nodded, and didn’t push the conversation further. She turned out to sea, spotting Reggie on the beach waving his arms for them to hurry up. She waved back, stumbling in place slightly. “Oh, they’re down there!”  
“Yeah,” Luke replied. “It’s kind of tricky but if we climb--”   
  
He only got halfway through his sentence before he heard her yelp and disappear off the edge of the rock wall. Luke’s jaw dropped and he threw his hands out in disbeleif. Reggie, out in the sand, cringed visibly, and he heard Alex make a sound from below. Luke scrambled to the wall, lowering himself down and scrambling in his descent. He got halfway down before he decided it was safe enough to jump himself. Flynn was shaking her head in her hands, wearing Alex’s pink hoodie over her damp maxi dress. Alex was helping Julie up, who was swaying on one foot. Reggie jogged over to assess the damage.

Luke put a hand on her shoulder. “What the hell did you do that for!?”  
“Can you walk on it?” Reggie asked, watching her test her weight on her foot.   
“Not my smartest move,” Julie admitted, wincing.    
“There had better not be a bone sticking out,” Flynn warned, muffled by her hands.   
“It’s just a sprain,” Julie determined. “Hurts like hell.”   
  
Luke groaned. “Okay, so the girls have one working leg between the two of them. How are we going to get them home?”   
“We don’t have to. Flynn’s is way closer,” Julie offered. “Also I… kinda told my dad I was staying there. He’d start asking questions if I woke up in my house.”   
“With a fucked up foot no less,” Reggie sighed.    
“Okay, here's an idea:” Alex suggested. “Reggie and I can carry Flynn between us, we already moved her once. The dress kinda hides the tail in the dark.”   
“Thank the lord for my excellent fashion taste,” Flynn butted in.    
“You’ll have to take Julie,” Alex added.

Luke tried not to agree too quickly. He turned to Julie as the guys prepared to lift Flynn off the sand. Julie was standing with her arms crossed against the breeze, looking apologetic. “That was stupid of me,” she offered.   
“Yeah,” Luke laughed. “I tried to tell you but you were already gone.” The cold bit his nose, and he shrugged out of his denim coat to offer it to her. “Put this on.”   
“But you’ll get cold,” Julie protested, although she was already taking the coat from him and holding it to her chest.   
“I won’t,” Luke insisted, kneeling on the sand. “Because you’re gonna be on my back. Hop up.”   
Julie stared dumbfounded for a second. “Are you sure?”   
“Yes!” Luke insisted. “Quick, I look like an idiot.”   
  
Julie hobbled over, slipping her arms through the sleeves of his coat. She stepped forward on her good leg and he hooked his arm under it. She looped her arms around his neck and he heaved them upright, settling his arms into the crooks of her knees and testing their balance. He could hear her breath by his ear, could see her arms in his too-long sleeves, the scattered bleach pattern catching his eye as she gripped her hands together. “Next stop: wherever you direct me because I have no idea where Flynn lives.”   
Julie laughed, right by his ear. “Get up to the street and follow it to the first intersection.”   
“Aye aye, captain,” Luke grinned, setting out across the sand.


End file.
